When Phillips chooses to spread the play, defenses have to contend with stand-off Rhys Priestland, whose booming kicks can change field position in an instant, or the prospect of attempting to tackle the muscular midfield of Jamie Roberts, a 6-foot-4, 243-pound battering ram, and Jonathan Davies, a bruising 6-foot-1, 227-pound ball carrier with a deceptive turn of speed.

WSJ: Wales Unleashes Its Behemoths

Experiments measured the forces and acceleration of a regulation, adult-size-5 ball propelled repeatedly at a magnesium dummy-like head at 18 meters per second, which is considered the average speed a ball is kicked by nonprofessional players.

WSJ: Soccer 'Header' Impact Likened to Hard Punch

The visitors were soon on the back foot from an attacking Dragons line-out, the home side driving forward before spreading the ball quickly and accurately across the three-quarter line for Brew to speed in at the corner.

BBC: Dragons 30-14 Leinster

That tactic, in which players ceaselessly switched positions, creating new passing angles that allowed them to circulate the ball at exhilarating speed, was devastating in the 1970s, when almost every team used man-to-man marking.

WSJ: Like for Like Among Old Rivals

When a ball is pitched to the robot, an accelerometer at the back of a batting cage records information about the flight of the ball, including its speed, and this data is relayed back to a machine that holds the GPU-powered brain.

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