The Big League Podcast: One NZ CEO Jason Paris on how Artificial Intelligence can bolster Warriors’ coaching arsenal

Jason Paris at last season's Warriors awards dinner. Photo / Photosport

It seems Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology makes headlines daily as it streams past milestones with increasing speed.

Yet it has not reached regular conversation about rugby league coaching - that is, until today.

One NZ CEO and Warriors apologist Jason Paris told The Big League Podcast that he has had conversations with Warriors CEO, Cameron George, about introducing the technology to coach Andrew Webster’s arsenal.

He told host Nathan Limm that the opportunities presented by AI in a rugby league context are “endless”.

“You can track where the back three of the opposition team are positioning themselves to give you some pretty good understanding of whether a short kick is possible, which corner you should be kicking into, where space is available behind the immediate defensive line.

“When they’re kicking, is anyone being a little bit lazy in the middle of the field? Maybe instead of taking that hit-up, pass it to a player further infield because that might be an opportunity to put a fast back against a slower forward.”

In its current state historical data can be pulled from previous fixtures, but it would be revolutionary for the game if used in real-time during an NRL game.

“You can grab a whole bunch of data from a whole bunch of areas, put it into an application and then put massive compute power behind that application and then ask it some pretty interesting questions.... It gives a greater level of insight than we’ve ever had before,” said Paris.

While the use of data-driven decision-making is nothing new in the world of professional sports coaching, American sports like the NFL have been leaders in the use of data, Paris says he is unaware of any NRL clubs using technology in such a way.

Webster need not fear for his job, though, as Paris was adamant there is no substitute for human intuition when it comes to rugby league.

“You can’t beat understanding the dynamics about a player, about how they’re going to fit within the team. You can’t beat understanding the culture of the person. AI is not going to be able to tell you who’s going to be the next superstars coming through.”