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Rico Gear creating rugby training app he hopes will help grow game worldwide

May 26, 2020
during the international rugby union test match between the New Zealand All Blacks and Wales held at the Millennium Stadium, in Cardiff, Wales on Saturday 25 November, 2006. The All Blacks won the match 45 - 10

Former All Black Rico Gear is taking the next step into his coaching career teaming up with an NBA coach to an create online training app.

By Zion Dayal

Gear, who played 20 Tests for the All Blacks, is setting up an app to help players improve, but with so many training apps on the market his point of difference is using artificial intelligence.

"The artificial intelligence is going to get to the point where to show the difference between elite and beginner and everything in between," Gear told 1 NEWS.

"We will be demonstrating a number of specific drills so you get to watch that and then you'll turn the video on yourself and preform the same drill and then you upload the video to the application and that's where the artificial intelligence will monitor and measure your progress.

He's teamed up with NBA coach Irv Roland to create a rugby version of his original basketball app. Roland's helped coach the likes of James Harden, Trae Young and Kyrie Irving to name a few.

His app specialises in basketball, but he's now teamed up with Gear to expand the services to a variety of sports.

"What we have at the moment is people putting up drills and skills online we can see but there is no way to measure or see if the player is improving cause there's no feedback what you are going to have is direct feedback with a measured approach which tells you whether or not you are getting better," Gear said.

Gear who is now based on the Gold Coast as a rugby coach believes this app can help grow rugby around the world.

"It's not just going to be about providing solutions for New Zealand rugby, it's going to go global.

"It's going to be good for the game overall. We look at the USA's big playing numbers and it's still quite a young the game up there, and also the Asian countries that they certainly don't have access to good coaching.

With the app in the early stages, Gear and Roland hope to get more high level sports people involved to create a variety of apps for different sports.

"It's a really positive thing, we think it's a beneficial factor for the kids that may not have a mother or father at home but they have this application they connect to," Gear said.

The app Rico Gear International Training is expected to launch in three months' time.

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