Sensors, data and the self-policing rugby match

RUGBY UNION, it is often said, is a game for thugs that is played by gentlemen. “Played by lawyers” might be a more accurate dictum. The rules are famously complicated. Scrums—organised shoving matches between the two teams’ burliest members—are regarded as a dark art even by other players. Open, running play can be stopped and wound back for any number of arcane infringements. The recent Rugby World Cup competition, held in Japan, is regarded as a big success by those keen to boost the sport’s popularity. But it was marred by arguments about how to interpret complicated new rules forbidding dangerous shoulder charges and high tackles. (World Rugby, the game’s governing body, offers referees a handy flowchart to memorise, which provides for eight possible outcomes.)

All this is an irritant to players and referees, and a turn-off for viewers, who struggle to follow the action or work out why a particular decision was made. But a British firm called Sportable thinks it might be able to improve things, by wiring up rugby players—and rugby balls—with high-tech sensors.

Sportable was founded in 2014 by Dugald Macdonald and Peter Husemeyer, a pair of rugby-mad South Africans. It makes lightweight, sensor-stuffed garments that can be worn under a jersey and which measure impact forces in 80 separate places on a player’s body....