It is arguably rugby’s hottest area of debate. So when it comes to dissecting and improving the tackle, few are surely better placed to speak with authority than an openside flanker who played in last season’s Champions Cup final while studying the subject for a PhD.

Will Connors, the Ireland back-row with nine Test caps, has spent the past two years working on a PhD at Trinity College focusing on how to optimise the tackle, having previously graduated with a computer science degree from University College Dublin.

Connors’ work at the moment is focused on building a computer model which can analyse hundreds of tackles faster than any human sifting through video clips looking for errors, with the model then able to highlight which areas of the tackle – head position, feet position, body height, speed before the contact – can be improved and fed back into coaching at all levels. Think of the VAR simulations which show whether a player is offside in football.

His computer model removes any human bias when it comes to assessing each tackle, therefore picking up mistakes which our own eyes may miss or ignore. The Irish Rugby Football Union have supplied video data to feed into the model, showing significant interest, while Connors has also been part of the Rugby Science Week hosted by World Rugby. All of this work is being done with a big aim: to show that the tackle can be perfected rather than face the threat of being removed from the sport.

“The way I’m doing it is a slow-burner,” Connors says. “You have to build a model to capture the tackle and then dissect it from different angles, looking at foot placements and bits like that. There is a huge amount of data going into building the model which I’m focusing on right now. Then, the bit which should come to fruition will be going through 10 different tackles relatively quickly rather than from a visual perspective, and to take from that the most important feature we need to coach or train. The hope is in two, three years’ time when this is done that I’ll have something which can be beneficial to the game going forward.”

While the study is still very much in the data-collection stage and some way off producing direct results, foot placement is an obvious area of improvement according to Connors. “The importance of having a different stride coming into a tackle, as opposed to just sprinting and having no change, that final foot placement and how close it is [to the opponent] will be something I’m going to dig deeper into; how much of an effect it has on the tackler and the control they have as well being able to give a good shot.”

Inadvertently, Connors might even make a few tweaks to his own tackle technique, although that area is a real strength of his game already. Leo Cullen, his head coach at Leinster, recently described Connors as one of the best chop tacklers in the sport. On his Ireland debut back in 2020, he made 20 tackles. “A big part of my game is trying to have an optimal tackle but I try not to get pigeonholed into it – it’s important for other parts of my game that I keep driving those [as well], I can’t get too obsessed.”

The inspiration for his research came during a lengthy spell out with ACL and Achilles injuries. Hugh Hogan, then Leinster’s contact coach and looking into research, would use Connors “as a guinea pig to trial technique on”. Connors adds: “It was all very low-level stuff, but there was proper structure to it. By the time I was back playing, it felt like I was a completely different player in terms of my technique, I felt more confident in it, better for it.”

Amendments to the laws around the tackle, and concerns for its future, prompted Connors to wonder whether more could be done from a computational standpoint, to inform and educate players at all levels about the optimal way to bring down opponents. He added that in the future he would love to investigate the impact of lowering the tackle height in the community game in England to the base of the sternum.

“I just looked at it as a skill which everyone would be able to learn, but it just hadn’t been portrayed that way. My motivation was that yes, there is a bit to it, but at the end of the day instead of completely eradicating it I would love to see it properly coached in schools and professional rugby. There is so much to the tackle that it probably doesn’t get the respect it needs,” he explains.

“[Lowering the tackle height] I suppose in theory should reduce the number of head contacts, head-on-head anyway. It’s just so complex and multi-faceted that I don’t think we’re always going to be able to please everyone. It would be a shame to ever lose the tackle in rugby because I think it’s the beauty of the game as well to an extent, part of the contact element people really enjoy. Making it safer, as opposed to completely eradicating it, is important.”

Juggling his commitment to Leinster with his studies is a challenge in its own right. Mondays and Tuesdays are devoted to training and preparing for that week’s opposition, followed by PhD work on Wednesdays and a mixture on Thursdays and Fridays. “To be honest, I don’t want it to become a distraction from my rugby, but I also feel it benefits me to take me away from that fully immersed feeling,” he notes. “If you don’t pull yourself away from rugby sometimes you don’t actually see the full picture, if that makes sense. Some people use PlayStation, whatever it is, the PhD is my version of that, my outlet.”

And while Connors is self-aware enough to admit that “as with anything academic, you could come to the end of it and find there’s nothing really conclusive or new”, the early signs from building the computer model are encouraging. Combining that research with playing for one of the top sides in the world? Highly impressive.