The RWC Match Ball – A Short History
Editor: “Dig out something on the match ball they use for this thing”
Scribe: “Thing? The Rugby World Cup, boss?”
Editor: “Yes! Now run along.”
Published in the Irish Times Rugby World Cup 2015 preview magazine (Thursday, September 10th, 2015)
Whether one believes or not in the legend of young William Webb Ellis, the oval shaped object at the heart of proceedings remains an instant identifier of rugby football.
The first Rugby World Cup in 1987 was played with a Mitre Multiplex. In 1991, an Adidas Webb Ellis. Gilbert got the contract in 1995 and it has held on to it since. But what makes a good rugby ball?
“To me, the purest ball flight was the Adidas Wallaby, the leather one with the two black dots. France used to play with it.” said Dave Alred, kicking coach to Jonny Wilkinson for many years, along with Jonathan Sexton and others. So the Wallaby, a ball older than most of the players at the 2015 Rugby World Cup, was the peak of rugby ball development? Not quite. “When it was wet it was all over the place,” Alred adds.
A rugby ball must be able to keep its shape and performance in all conditions, and the man in charge of that at Gilbert is ball engineer, Ian Savage.
The 2015 World Cup ball is called the Match XV (pronounced “ex vee”). “The surface is slightly softer in feel,” said Savage. “It also repels water better than its previous version. So the main improvement between this and the ball for the last world cup is a grip improvement.”
The ball is built upon previous developments. Gilbert’s Virtuo ball, developed for the 2011 tournament, was designed with a new bladder and valve, a significant internal change. The 2007 innovation was the introduction of thousands of extra, smaller, pimples; a delicate aerodynamic business…
