Australian Super Rugby teams "could share live player data with each other" midseason as part of a "new unified push to return Aussie rugby to the top of the world," according to Iain Payten of the Sydney DAILY TELEGRAPH. The "unprecedented idea was part of a historic summit in Sydney on Wednesday," where a large group of Australian rugby’s "best minds gathered to figure out how to pull together and get back to winning." The meeting, which was convened by Australian Rugby Union High Performance Dir Ben Whitaker and ARU Head of Special Projects Rod Kafer, saw Wallabies coach Michael Cheika and his staff in attendance, along with the coaches, football staff and high performance heads of all four Australian Super Rugby teams. The men's and women’s Aussie sevens programs "were also in the room." They agreed to a new "One Plan" model that will see all teams operate under a national high performance system covering "athletic performance to player welfare, coaching and talent management." Whitaker: "The detail will be thrashed out now in terms of strength and conditioning coaches, analysts, high performance managers." After decades of "suspicion and distrust between states," and toward the ARU, the solidarity in the "One Plan" system is "unprecedented" in Australian rugby. The player data "was shared retrospectively this year but one topic of discussion at the Sydney summit this week is whether the player data will be shared in real time" during the '18 Super Rugby season. Whitaker said that he hoped the summit would "establish a consensus" on how to track "performance" measurements during the season (DAILY TELEGRAPH, 10/11).
