From the 11th November viewers of all rugby internationals on terrestrial television will be able to see enhanced instant on-screen analysis of the match, thanks to a partnership announced today between Computacenter and Hourglass vision.

Throughout the autumn internationals and the Six Nations Championship, Computacenter will be working with Hourglass Vision who, for over 10 years, have developed match analysis for British and World Cup rugby, to evolve the existing match data to provide a deeper analysis of the game and monitor individual player performance.

Full analysis of the statistics, which will subsequently incorporate individual player performance figures, will be available to sports commentators, referees, team management and, in a scaled down version to BBC, ITV and RTE TV audiences.

The next step in the development of the system will be a website exclusively for the use of industry and media personnel, currently being developed by The iGroup, Computacenter's e-business division, which will display the information immediately the final whistle is blown.

"This is extremely exciting, " commented Fred Howard, former international referee. "Not only will this information add to the spectators' enjoyment of each game by giving them possession profiles and player statistics, it will be invaluable to coaches and team selectors when comparing how players have performed in different matches. They can take into account a whole variety of conditions, measure individual performance against different teams, and even use the information to fine tune team selection to match the opponent's skills and weaknesses."

Mike Norris, Chief Executive Officer, Computacenter commented, "Computacenter's core business is about enabling companies to share information and provide better services to their customers through the efficient and innovative use of IT. It is this philosophy that we plan to take into rugby union to work with the sport to help achieve the vision of a European team winning the World Cup by 2007. I'm delighted we have laid the foundations of a real partnership with International rugby - a great British sport which our customers enjoy and like ourselves, is developing across Europe. We have exciting plans for our future involvement that we look forward to announcing in more detail over the coming months."

About Hourglass Vision

Hourglass Vision Ltd was formed in 1992 to develop software solutions for sports administration and television outside broadcasts and has since had world-wide involvement in televised rugby providing systems to support both rugby league and union at World Cup, International and Club level. Other notable past events include provision of accreditation support for the 1993 European Swimming Championships and the 1993 Rugby World Cup 7s; TV graphics for the Rugby League World Cup in 1995 and 2000 and in partnership with Wurmsers, the provision of a media and match tracking system for the 1994/95 UEFA Champions League.