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Cape Town - As is the case with every major sporting event on the planet these days, the equipment utilised comes under tremendous scrutiny and it is no different this time around at the RWC.
The article in question is Gilbert’s Virtuo rugby ball, which is the official ball of the RWC.
The beginning of this year’s tournament has seen the world’s top goal kickers struggling to find form with Morné Steyn the only kicker to achieve a 100% success rate.
England’s Jonny Wilkinson was particularly poor, missing five of his eight attempts at goal in England's opening match against Argentina.
What was even more surprising as that Wilkinson had near perfect kicking conditions in the fully-covered Otago Stadium.
“The difficulty was that I felt I was hitting the ball well and expecting to see it go where I wanted it to go, but when the ball moves a bit how do you correct something that didn’t feel wrong,” said Wilkinson, hinting that the ball influenced his performance.
In response to Wilkinson’s accusations that the ball was at fault, All Black legend and former flyhalf, Grant Fox said that it was too early to determine if the ball had anything to do with the Englishman's poor goal kicking.
"We've got to wait a little bit longer into this tournament to work out whether in fact there is anything within the atmosphere of the stadium, or the ball or a bit of both. We just haven't seen Jonny have it very often. Whether it's the effects of a smaller, enclosed stadium as opposed to a much bigger one like [Cardiff's] Millennium that's open at the ends with a bit of breeze going through, or the kicker's having an off-night - which is the more likely one," he told New Zealand Herald’s website.
"My instinct tells me they had a bad day at the office," he added.
Speaking exclusively to Sport24, Gilbert SA’s sales and Marketing Director, Damien Rudham said that players have had enough time to get accustomed to the Virtuo.
“Gilbert had received some negative comments in the press over the last few days with regards to Virtuo match used in the RWC,” he said before pointing out that since the ball’s launch in June 2010, every Test playing rugby nation had an opportunity to test out the new ball.
“This ball was used in the 2010 November internationals in the northern hemisphere, the 2011 Six Nations in February and March and the recent 2011 Tri-Nations. The only difference in this ball is that the Trade marked ‘Gilbert Ellipse’ design haa been replaced by the RWC 2011 print in green and blue, meaning the only change is a cosmetic one and has nothing to do with the construction of the ball.
“Another fact is the actual match ball played with in the RWC is also given to the teams for the Captain’s run the day before the game is played so the kickers have a chance to work with the same ball,” added Rudham.
“Morne Steyn proved with his touchline conversion that if you kick it straight it will stay straight!”
