We’re hard-wired at birth to react to stress in certain physical ways. Now our ancient instincts, honed over millennia to survive the attack of a sabre-toothed tiger or fight off raiders from another tribe, could be managed to produce better rugby players. As Rugby World Cup 2007 gets under way, we go genetic brain profiling. By Andy Colquhoun, editor of Rugby World South Africa

This story should probably be read while the theme tune from the X-Files plays in the background. Or maybe it should be the theme from Gattaca, a movie set in a future where a person’s place in society is dictated by their genetic make-up. “It’s very, very scary,” says former Springbok kicker and TV rugby commentator Naas Botha.

It’s also very exciting. “I can see a future where we will establish at the age of five or six exactly who has the brain profile to make it to the top and in what position,” says Botha, “The potential is absolutely amazing.”

What we are talking about is the science of genetic brain profiling, and the work that is being done with South African rugby teams by Dr Annette Lotter and her Australian partner, Ken Brown. Lotter is an educationalist and occupational specialist who divides her time between her native South Africa and Australia. She has worked with Botha and provincial coaches to establish a methodology to apply to rugby techniques she has used in other spheres of life for 18 years.

“The Russians have been using brain profiling for a very long time but no one in the world of rugby has used it before,” she says. “When I present to coaches, they are shocked because it’s so fundamental to what they are doing, yet they’ve never heard of it.

“It’s simple, and makes such sense, that it’s a wonder we’ve not done more with it in rugby. We’ve had success with children in school, with university students and in the corporate business world – and it’s time we took it to the next level in sport.”

At its simplest, brain profiling predicts where our mental and physical strengths and weaknesses lie and, most importantly, how we will function under stress. We are genetically programmed at conception to have a dominance in our five “modalities” (sensory perceptions): brain hemisphere, eye, ear, hand and foot.

This is why we instinctively favour one hand over the other or step on or off with a certain foot. It is the same with our eyes and ears; we’re either left-brain dominant (predisposed to routine and structure) or right-brain dominant (bored by repetition).

“What’s scary is that we can actually get closer and closer to a situation of knowing – genetically – which players have big match temperament and which don’t,” says Botha. “For instance, if you have two kickers in a team and have a vital kick at the end of the game, you can know from brain profiling which of them is going to make it – and give him the kick.”

Rugby coaches can easily recognise the abilities of fit and unstressed players in training, but where genetic brain profiling has its impact is in predicting what happens to a player when he is tired and under pressure, and what remedies might be needed to help him negotiate these situations without damaging his team.

“In simple terms, what happens when we’re under stress or tired is that we begin to lose access to the non-dominant hemisphere and the modalities functioning from it,” says Lotter. “If the stress intensifies, we start to see the same loss in the dominant hemisphere. For example, if it’s the right hemisphere, the ability to plan and forward-think would be impaired, and if it’s the left, the ability to perform repetitive functions would suffer.

“Where this science is applicable in rugby is in helping players understand what unconsciously happens to them under stress, in how this may affect performance, and in giving them the skills to cope. So for a left-brain player who loses the ability to plan and forward-think when he is under pressure – but whose technical abilities are not affected – you might want to repeatedly put him in crisis situations in practice so that he can instinctively learn how to automatically react in the way that his left brain operates.

“The right-brain player under stress will still be able to evaluate what is going on, but needs to understand that his technical co-ordination abilities may be impaired.”

There are 32 different combinations of dominance between the left and right brain and the ear, eye, hand and foot, and each has implications for the way a stressed player will perform. Lotter assesses players and is able to predict the “blockages” they would suffer as a result.

For example, in an age-group provincial team she recently assessed, she found a tighthead prop with four blockages (“basically, he was unable to function under pressure”), while the fl y-half and inside-centre were among those with three blockages (“key decision makers would lose the ability to communicate and perform under stress”).

Lotter – with input from several rugby professionals – has drawn up the ideal genetic brain profile for the skills required in each position on the field. This is where Botha’s Gattacaesque selection process at the age of six comes into play.

“Right-brain players might be best suited to the decision-making positions whereas those positions with more repetitive techniques may be better suited to left-brain dominances,” says Lotter. “You can then look at getting combinations for teams. For instance, we profiled the junior teams of one of the Super 14 franchises and found that the loosehead prop and hooker were both left-brain, left-foot, left hand-dominant – and this can lead to the scrum subconsciously going left.

“With this knowledge, a coach can structure training that favours techniques to remind them of this dominance.

Similarly, you might have a move that asks a No 8 to break from the back of a scrum to his non-dominant side, and pass off his weaker hand to a scrum-half whose eye and hand combination put him in his worst position on the field to receive the ball. I’m not saying it means a coach shouldn’t use that move, but if he and the players are aware of their dominances and weaknesses, they can better manage them.”

Lotter’s work is highly confidential, and she declines to name the teams she is working with for fear that secrets may slip out and opponents take advantage. For example: “Players with a left-eye dominance are overly sensitive to body language, and if you know that, you can throw them off their game by pulling faces or making gestures. You might also wonder how they react to the haka (the Maori war chant used by the All Blacks).

“Left-ear people can be distracted by noise and fail to hear important instructions. In the same way, if they have a coach who is always barking and shouting at them in an aggressive way, they hear the noise but don’t process instructions.” Coaches, too, can benefit from understanding how their modalities affect the way they coach.

Botha is convinced of the value of the approach: “I had my whole family brain-profiled and was amazed – if you read the report on me, you would know all about me. It showed that I performed better under pressure, which is probably a little bit true, but if you’re talking to me on the phone, I’ll probably be doing something else because I can’t be bothered with long stories. I never really understood how the Russians could select a sport that would suit kids of five, six and seven – but this is how it’s done.”

The approach could have more immediate benefits, says Lotter. “We had one case of an age-group player whom the coach wanted to play on the left wing, but the player was adamant that he could play only on the right. When we profiled him, the results bore out what he’d been saying – playing on the left would make him feel anxious and not in control because of his genetic dominances.”

Says Botha: “Being out of world sport for so long meant we fell behind. We should look at any new techniques that can help us be the best in the world once again.”

First published in Rugby World South Africa.