In 1995, Gilbert Rugby became official ball supplier to Rugby World Cup. Since then, Gilbert have worked on a periodic 4 year cycle to innovate rugby balls, making huge technical developments along the way. Alongside this, their names have also progressed.
In 1995 Gilbert introduced the Barbarian match ball, for the 2019 RWC, Gilbert have introduced Sirius.
The Sirius star system is the 7th closest star from Earth and is made up of a main-sequence star, Sirius A, and a faint dwarf star – Sirius B. Together they make up the brightest star in the night sky, visible from both the northern and southern hemispheres.
Using these key factors about the Sirius Star, alongside the technical innovations of the new match ball and Gilbert’s relationship with RWC, gave us the perfect name for the Rugby World Cup 2019 Match Ball. The 2019 RWC will mark the 7th iteration of the Gilbert RWC Match Ball. Starting with 1995 – Barbarian; 1999 – Revolution; 2003 – Xact; 2007 – Synergie; 2011 – Virtuo; 2015 – Match-XV and finally 2019 – Sirius.
The Sirius match ball has been designed using new and innovative manufacturing technology to create the dual height precision star shaped pimple pattern that covers the entire ball. This therefore presents the main star Sirius A and its companion Sirius B. Finally Sirius’ broad visibility represents the coming together of rugby players from across the world for the biggest rugby tournament of the year.
