New adidas balls get airborne

All Black goal-kicker Daniel Carter has been involved in secret testing with sporting giants adidas to develop a new rugby ball that flies 15 metres further than the current Gilbert ball ... or so they claim.

"I started from halfway and they were definitely flying a long way - so I went back to about 60 or 70m and they were still going over," said Carter.

The German sports company, who are the main sponsors of the All Blacks, have been developing a new ball since they lost the rights as ball suppliers to the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) in 2002 to rivals Gilbert, when All Black fly-half Andrew Mehrtens described the ball as a "pig and a lemon".

New Zealander Andrew Gaze, head of rugby at adidas, confirmed the ball prototype was in the latter stages of testing.

"We said at that time that we would go away and work on the ball with the benchmark being that the new model would be at least as good, but ideally better than the Gilbert ball," Gaze told the Sunday Star-Times from the Adidas Amsterdam base.

England's goal-kicking machine Johnny Wilkinson and former Wales and Lions fly-half Neil Jenkins will also be involved in testing the new ball.

"The key driver has been England kicking guru Dave Alred who is recognised as one of the best kicking coaches in international rugby," said Gaze.

However, a new rugby ball would pose similar problems that golf has with new equipment that over-powers shorter traditional golf courses.