Rugby strip? This is a cloak of invisibility
OVER the years, international rugby players have been exhorted to ever greater feats of skill, strength and endurance. But, until now, no one has asked them to disappear.
That, however, seems to be the intention behind England’s new kit, which purports to use state-of-the-art camouflage technology to “mask player movement”.
The alternative dark grey outfit, to be worn against Argentina next month and by the women’s team against Canada, is accentuated with a “fiery red fade”, intended to blur the ball-carrier as opposition players charge in for the tackle.
Manufactured by Canterbury, the design is said to be in keeping with head coach Eddie Jones’s vision of playing “disruptive and uncompromising” rugby.
But last night scientists were scratching their heads as to whether the kit will actually make a difference.
Meanwhile, fans took to social media to criticise the £95 fresh design – the eighth in the last three years – as a revenue-raising stunt.
Grey has a mixed history as a sporting colour. In 1996, Alex Ferguson told his Manchester United players to change out of their grey strip halfway through a losing game at Southampton after they complained they could not see each other against the crowd, while last month the Welsh football team ditched their grey kit because the players considered it unlucky.
The Rugby Football Union has traditionally been eager to embrace technological innovation, in 2003 making England the first nation to eschew cotton shirts in favour of a hard-to-tackle, tight-fitting design.
Prof Wendy Adams, an expert in human visual perception at the University of Southampton, said that any advantage gained from the fading design was likely to be squandered by the highcontrast O2 symbol emblazoned on the front of the shirts. But she added: “The dark grey of the colour of the fabric could, in principle, reduce the salience of visual contours, such as shadow boundaries within the players’ bodies, when compared to a white kit, for example. The gradual change from grey to red may also be less likely to attract attention than a sharp greyred boundary.” Camouflage attempts to conceal objects by softening their true boundary. However, the value of such techniques tends to be lost with movement. A further type of “dazzle camouflage” can be employed, not to hide objects, but to make it difficult to judge accurately their position and movement. Prof Adams suggested the new shirt design may owe something to this concept. Canterbury said it had created the pattern based on “distraction principles”, but would not give further detail.