In August 1995, the International Rugby Board declared Rugby Union a professional sport. As we approach the 25th anniversary of the professionalisation of Rugby Union, it is worth reflecting back on the evolution of the sports during the last two and a half decades. The sport has experienced incredible change, with multi-billion worldwide audiences, broadcasting agreements and lucrative contracts for players, coaches and clubs. This rise in popularity led to the rise of the standards to performance demanded at an elite level. Competitive margins became tighter as athlete development, the coaching processes and overall club management became more complex. Incentives of winning to attract sponsors and broadcasters became a major focus and so did the efforts of clubs to acquire an extra competitive edge over their opponents. This added complexity triggered the emergence of new backroom functions that dealt with areas from physiological, psychological or biomechanical aspects affecting players (i.e. Strength & Conditioning coaches or Team Psychologists) to those providing an objective evaluation of performance and addressing the need of a better understanding of the determinants of success in the game (i.e. Performance Analysts).
Emergence of the Use of Technology and Data
Over the years, advancements in technology and data management processes in all top sports have led the way in better defining individual and team performances, and Rugby Union is no exception. Coaches and other backroom staff can now be seen in the stands with a wide variety of computers and technology monitoring all aspects of the match in great detail. Different camera angles, data and analysis are now available to them right there and then to make instant decisions, as well as post-match reviews.
VIDEO ANALYSIS TECHNOLOGY
Amongst the many new practices emerging from the use of technology, the introduction of video analysis in the coaching process has enabled for dynamic and complex situations in sports to be quantified in an objective, reliable and valid manner. Time-lapsed software packages like SportsCode have enabled Performance Analysts to analyse match or training footage by manually tracking event frequencies and creating datasets for later analysis. Thanks to SportsCode and other videoanalysis software, these datasets are also linked to video footage for better contextualisation during review.
Source: Gloucester Rugby
RESHAPING BACKROOM STAFF PROFILES
The ways in which the collected data is used is also evolving from basic visualisations, historicals and dashboards to more complex prescriptive approaches that provide more informed recommendations and can predict possible outcomes. This change is being driven by a new generation of Sport Scientists and Performance Analysts who have come into rugby with an increasingly stronger background in data and analytics. With the hand of coaches willing to listen to data, they are changing the culture within clubs into a more evidence-based approach to performance. These analysts not only analyse all aspects of their team’s performance but also aim to detect the strengths and weaknesses of their next opposition for coaches to use in their game plan. Thanks to the latest technologies and availability of data through third party providers like Opta, they can now perform incredibly detailed analysis, such as an opponent’s key player’s kicking game (i.e. the types of kicks, when he made them, from which part of the field and the distance he tended to get) or even identifying who are the key players in an opposition’s running game.
IMPROVED TRACKING EQUIPMENT AND DEVICES
In today’s modern rugby, all leading rugby union clubs use data to monitor fitness, prevent injuries and track player’s positions through devices such as wearable GPS trackers. The data captured from these technologies have played a key role in preventing player injuries. GPS technology company Catapult - which develops wearable devices sewn into the back of players’ shirts - recently aimed to deepen the use of data in rugby by launching a unique set of algorithms engineered to quantify key technical and physical demands in the sport. They achieve this by automatically detecting scrums, kicks and contact involvements in Rugby Union players. This data providing insights on the physical demands imposed to players gives coaches crucial information to manage the load given to players during training and matches to better maintain adequate levels of fitness while preventing injuries from physical overexertion. Coaching staff can now see the levels of effort put in during training sessions and, by monitoring the players’ thresholds, they can better design training sessions to keep the players fresh for the games. One of the benefits from Catapult’s Rugby Suite is the measurement of contact involvement duration (i.e. the time a player takes to get back to feet, also known as Back In Game Time). This allows strength & conditioning coaches to identify player fatigue levels and their intent when returning to the defensive or offensive line.
Source: Business Insider - Credit: Harlequins/Catapult
INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY TO ENSURE PLAYER WELLBEING
Another key area strongly impacted by technology is concussions. Concussions are a growing issue in the sport, leading to players eventually suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain condition with symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s. This has been a focus of technological developments aiming to better prevent and monitor them across various contact sports. Historically, pitch-side doctors rely on player honesty for their risk assessment when deciding whether the player should return to play. However, companies like OPRO+ are now building impact sensors into the personalised gumshields frequently worn by players to protect their teeth. By having impact detection technology closer to the centre of the skull doctors can paint a more accurate picture of the forces involved in each impact. OPRO+ can transmit impact data to a laptop in real-time so that pitch-side doctors can assess whether a player requires further assessment. This has proven particularly important in training sessions, where 20% of head injuries take place, although most of them go unseen. Thanks to this technology, coaches are now able to assess the forces exerted by players during drills and adjust the practice accordingly to avoid undetected head injuries. This type of tracking technology could eventually help develop a digital passport of historical head impact data for individual players, which can help them lengthen their careers by preventing early retirement due to poorly treated head injuries.
Source: Opro Mouthguards
Further advancements in the use of technology to prevent concussions were introduced as recent as five years ago across the world of rugby. In 2015, World Rugby also introduced a cloud-based technology developed by CSx into the Head Injury Assessment (HIA) process. This system collected neurocognitive information that medical staff can review to determine if a player suffered a concussion. They transferred the data on the players involved, incidents and medical assessments to the data analytics platform Domo via an API, where the various datasets would be joined up in one single consolidated platform for further analysis. This new technical process introduced by World Rugby brought the estimated number of players allowed to continue to play after being concussed down from 56% to just 7%, while the chances of being removed of the game without being concussed only increased from 3% to 5%.
Source: The Times
How Are Unions And Clubs Managing The Relationship With Data And Technology In The Sport?
Successful rugby unions like New Zealand Rugby have started considering the balance between data and intuition. Their performance analysis department now operates in a highly dynamic technological environment where it provides its teams the ability to quickly analyse data for performance insights. The All Blacks turned to SAS in 2013, when they adopted SAS Visual Analytics as their main reporting tool. It enabled them to obtain a formal data management process that consolidated all real-time match data, post-match data and data retrieved through third party data providers in one unified and centralised platform.
New Zealand Rugby manages the relationship between players and technology by adopting the philosophy that when it comes to match play players are considered the ones in control of the game, as they are the ones that see, hear or feel what’s happening on the field. Technology is considered a supportive tool in the background to help inform decisions by bringing context and evidence to conversations, but not take over them.
As per England Rugby Union, head coach Eddie Jones addressed the significance of data prior to travelling to the 2019 World Cup in Japan. He suggested that data has had a key role for him in seeing what is important and deciding where to invest in to build the strength of your squad. England Rugby benefits from an extensive analytics team that provides post-match analysis but also real-time tactical suggestions to coaches during matches. The department implemented a philosophy of always looking for the winning edge. For instance, they aim to discover winning trends such as the now well-established theory that the use an effective kicking game tends to lead to more successful match outcomes, a theory now considered a basic principles in the sport.
Moreover, Rugby Australia also entered the world of data analytics by partnering with Accenture to develop a bespoke high-performance unit (HPU) analytics platform using Accenture's Insights Platform (AIP) that consolidated all their data activities. The system placed sports data at the core of all team’s management processes. As data ecosystems have become more complex with numerous sources and purposes for different datasets, Rugby Australia was able to integrate data, deliver insights and enable users in a single platform that provides a smarter and more automated approach that has led to a more effective way to manage their data assets. Insights are now available to players and staff via a mobile app that provides clear visibility of a particular player’s performance and health as well as allowing deep-dive exploration into highly detailed statistics about daily performance.
The growth of data management systems and processes has also extended beyond unions. Overtime, media, consultancies, tech companies and clubs themselves are beginning to gather larger amounts of data of the game in an attempt to develop big data capabilities. For instance, Accenture and RBS developed an analytical package for the 2017 Six Nations tournament that contained six million data points per match. IBM and the RFU also performed a similar exercise by developing a predictive analytics software, TryTracker, to forecast the outcome of a game by mining data from historical rugby matches obtained from Opta.
However, when it comes to professional clubs, data is increasingly more custom-made by the clubs themselves to tailor for particular coaching philosophies and needs, as well as team-specific insights. Most clubs will receive data from third-party providers like Opta at a certain level of granularity, but will then gather their own internal data often at a much deeper level. They create their own datasets where they might even analyse the technique of every single player in the team individually. For example, teams may track a more detailed view of their defense, detailing the dominance of each tackle. Coaches can also have an input in data captured by providing their expert insights as additional data points. Analysts will incorporate the couches’ perceived effectiveness or quality of a given action by a player as categorical data variable to the dataset (i.e. positive or negative movements according to effectiveness in performing a set of moves).
Have Data and Technology Been Fully Accepted In The Sport?
In December 2019, a study by Andrew Manley and Shaun Williams from the University of Bath triggered a new debate of whether the essence of the sport (i.e. enjoyment of the players) seen during the amateur era and the early professional years has been lost. Players are, allegedly, increasingly concerned about the use of modern technology to provide clubs with greater surveillance and pressure to perform over them.
OVER-EXPOSURE THROUGH TECHNOLOGY
The qualitative study by Manley and Williams interviewed 10 professional rugby players and asks them about their experience with data and technology at their club. Like many others at an elite level, their club used a series of devices such as laptops, camcorders, GPS devices, heart rate monitors, body fat recordings, mood score sheets, iPhones/iPads and mobile apps to map, track and monitor individual performances and player wellbeing. Data from these devices was collected by analysts and matched against the team’s key performance indicators. Analysts and coaches would then assess each player’s performance and set appropriate improvement plans. Once collected and validated, the data was published in the club’s mobile app for players to access it. According to the players interviewed, the open exposure of individual statistics created a climate of fear of public embarrassment when failing to meet personal performance indicators.
A CHANGING CULTURE
The club had also developed a global Work Efficiency Index for each player that was derived from 70 different variables describing a players positive and negative actions and physical condition. The use of this new metric by the club extended all the way to contract negotiations. This raised serious concerns from players, who often failed to understand how to improve their Work Efficiency Index, thus became suspicious that the results were being manipulated to suit the management’s rhetoric at any given time. Players started to obsess over this metric, prioritising it above their individual impact to the overall team performance. On the field, they also became risk adverse to avoid negatively impacting their specific stats defined by the clubs. They feared being called-out by coaches and judged by teammates during post-match reviews. Even then, performing well in individual stats had other negative effects on team dynamics. Players with positive individual stats had incentives to take it easy and ignore the additional contribution they could bring to the team after they ticked all the boxes.
INVASIVENESS OF CONSTANT MONITORING
Players also found the introduction of technology to be invasive in nature. The mobile app used by their club involved continuous monitoring of their activities and sent frequent notifications and reminders to players’ phones. Some of the features of this app included the monitoring of weight management. The club had even introduced fines if players failed to meet their body weight targets set in the system. Additionally, the new machine mentality at the club had coaches increasingly turning to technology to zoom in on the deficiencies affecting individual and team performance as a response to the pressures of a growing fan-base and increasing commercial interests of owners and sponsors that demand an acceleration to title success. Players felt that the excessive use of technology had introduced a Big Brother surveillance on players and was used as a coercive method of ensuring that players meet institutional objectives. Data and technology had simply become standard practice in elite coaching of modern rugby. However, players felt that these unrelenting practices of constantly monitoring had harmful consequences to their playing and private lives, as well as relationship with coaches, which had not yet been addressed. In their interviews, they argued that technology has enable coaches to formalize a regime of power, with the risks of turning the humanistic approach of coaching into pure data engineering.
PURISTS VERSUS OBJECTIVISTS
Other critics of the use of technology argue that Rugby Union is losing its way due to data. According to them, individual wizardry and innate empathy in the sport created from the unpredictability in the game is suppressed by those digital data profiles created by analysts and coaches that players are constantly trying to meet. The researchers in the study argued that data is taking away intelligence, creativity and human connection from the sport through mechanistic and restrictive routines imposed to players. As players become more risk adverse, predictable and formulaic, a culture without instinct, emotion and unpredictability is introduced in the sport, inevitably becoming less attractive to fans. This culture, according to researchers, encourages individualism over team dynamics and incites anxiety amongst players by throwing large amounts of data at them to pressure them to perform to the stats. This has become detrimental to their enjoyment and performance in the game.
While having recently praised the significance of data in achieving success, England coach Eddie Jones also expressed his concerns regarding the production of player at grassroots levels that lacked dimension. He stated that academy players are now coached to regimentally follow a game plan rather than react to dynamic and unpredicted events in a game. They are decision followers rather than decision makers. The study claimed that the surge in technological practices, to the detriment of players and the game, has also been accelerated by the new generation of head coaches entering top division clubs. These group of coaches are former players who have only known Rugby Union as a professional sport and who feel the need to keep up with technology not to fall behind. They prioritise control over players through procedural management at the expense of educational aspects of the job.
DATA OWNERSHIP AND SECURITY
Data ownership has also become a key concern to players. Even prior to the launch of GDPR regulations, legal proceedings had been discussed between players and their respective clubs on this matter. Their main concern was relating data accrued by clubs and unions through GPS units, and other performance measurement devices, relating to a player’s medical history, such as injuries. They wanted to prevent clubs from using their data without their consent, or even selling it to third parties, which could have detrimental effects to their careers and future earnings. The International Rugby Player Association addressed this issue by pressing on the efforts to make personal statistical data relating to the player to be owned by the player themselves, who should also receive any benefits that may arise from the commercialisation of such data.
Player statistics may not only be used in contract negotiations by the player’s current club but also by clubs interested in incorporating them in the near future. For instance, if a player’s performance in training has statistically declined (i.e. speed tests, work-rate or lifting in the gym) that information could be valuable to a club interested in signing said player. However, the information at the club’s disposal may lack completeness and paint an imprecise picture of the player’s true value. For example, there is a lack of measurement of soft skills a player can bring to a team, such as leadership and motivational impact on the rest of his teammates. Additionally, the security of their private and confidential data stored at the club is also an area of concern. As larger amounts of complex player data is gathered and stored in the club’s systems, the risk to data breach is also increased, particularly those of phishing or hacking attacks. This means that clubs and backroom departments have to now face structural and procedural challenges relating the way they manage and secure their vast amounts of data collected and have sufficient know-how to identify and prevent any serious security gaps.
Teething Problems Of A Rapidly Growing Field
The experiences described by the players interviewed in the study reflect the eagerness in today’s big data society to make use of the ever-evolving technological advancements. Everything is turned into data in order to be objectively understood. However, one of the most important conclusions in the study is that a lot of the data used in professional Rugby Union lacked relevance. Instead of aiming to capture as many variables as technology allows, a fewer amount of data should be made available to players that is substantially more meaningful to them. That is not to say that conclusions should be drawn from insufficient data samples. Another important issue in the application of analytics in Rugby Union, particularly at an international level where fewer matches are played, has been the generation of insights from too sparse and small sample sizes that are insufficient to make predictions. Focus should be placed in collecting and analysing large enough sample of the data identified as being truly meaningful for player and team development towards achieving excellence in the game.
Practical applications should be place at the core of any consideration for using data and technology. There have been numerous studies made on different aspects of the game, but more often than not these have dubious practical applications or mere usefulness in coaching practices. For instance, a study concluding that shared experience by players within the same team is correlated to better outcomes may have minor practical applications to coaches, as it is rare or difficult to buy shared experience and there is little a coach can do in that regard. Instead, analysts should look at performance patterns and trends rather than one-dimensional statistics, such as ratios or frequency counts. For example, analytical studies should aim to identify trends that develop before tackles are missed so we can help coaches and players identify the root flaws within a team’s defensive pattern.
The use of data in the sport should advance into true rugby analytics and deep intelligence by effectively and meaningfully using the data available in the sport. Analysts should aim to fully understanding what the team is trying to achieve and then go on to identify the metrics that influence those goals. This will allow them to inform decisions that impact performance and change behaviours. Since context is key it should become the central piece of most analytical work, as without it data insights presented to coaches lack value and practicality.
The role of analytics and technology is only going to grow even further. There is increasingly new technology coming into Rugby Union. This places increasing demand on people who can process vast amounts of data and come up with relevant analysis, while at the same time not losing touch with the nature of coaching practices in the Rugby Union. While some questions can be raised about today’s appropriate use of data analysis in defining and optimizing team performance, it is without a doubt that technology has open the doors to a wide range of developments that have evolved the jobs of coaches and players. While the study by Manley and Williams exposes some concerns of how data is being applied at a club level, it is also true that player wellbeing (i.e. concussion prevention) has seen a substantial improvement with the aid of technological advancements. The idea of data analysis is not to replace all other aspects of the coaching practice but to combines the coaches’ experience and intuitions with video and data analysis to help inform decisions on training priorities, on team selection, on tactics, and longer term on player recruitment and player retention issues. There is an important place for technology and data in the sport, but like everything, a healthy balance needs to be established where data and intuition strongly complement each other.
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