Gilbert Sirius Match Rugby Ball

The all new Elite Match Rugby Ball is named after the brightest star in the night sky, it has been two years in the making and is the seventh World Cup ball to be created by Gilbert.

Almost all of the features present in the Match-XV ball used at RWC 2015 remain, with the one notable difference being the use of a sharper pimple to provide better grip, especially in wet conditions.

“Due to different manufacturing techniques that we’ve developed over the last two to three years, we’ve been able to get much more definition on the pimple. That’s the technical difference,” explains Ian Savage, Gilbert’s ball engineer.

Previous World Cup Match Rugby Balls

• 1987 Mitre Multiplex
• 1991 Adidas Webb Ellis
• 1995 Gilbert Barbarian
• 1999 Gilbert Revolution
• 2003 Gilbert Xact
• 2007 Gilbert Synergie
• 2011 Gilbert Virtuo
• 2015 Gilbert Match-XV
• 2019 Gilbert Sirius

The previous Gilbert elite ball was the Gilbert Match XV rugby ball which was used in all Aviva Premiership games. Now known as the Gallagher Premiership it still retains the Match XV ball for the duration of the 2018/19 tournament. However, the new Gilbert Sirius ball is being used in the 6 Nations competition.

The Sirius ball has a new style ‘Hypernova’ grip and has a G-XV rubber compound surface, a reference to the previous Match XV ball. It retains some of the features from the Match XV ball too, such as Copolymer ‘Air-Loc’ bladder and the Truflight valve. It is also hand stitched and pre-kicked, although the new model states it is also has a ‘reaction laminate construction’ and conforms to world rugby specifications.