With this post, I wanted to showcase some exceptional work from one of our users, Tony Bambrick, who uses Nacsport for GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) video analysis.
Tony recently upgraded his Nacsport Basic to Nacsport Basic Plus to add more detail into his GAA performance analysis workflows. It is apparent that the higher functionality of this version has been put to good use! This post gives some further insight around a small sample of Tony’s excellent work when using Nacsport for his video analysis of GAA games.
In addition to this article, Tony has also collaborated with the Nacsport Head Office to create a further article on how he creates and displays his data, you can read this by clicking the button below:
I asked Tony about his experience with using Nacsport for GAA and his journey so far…
My own journey with Nacsport for GAA began just under 2 years ago. I had previous experience with other analysis software but was on the lookout for a cost-effective way to categorise and produce video clips for review and also capture some basic game statistics for my club team.
Nacsport Basic provided this and a bit more, with the integration of KlipDraw to enhance video presentations produced for team/management to review. The online documentation and video tutorials made available by AnalysisPro made it possible to quickly get up and running with Nacsport for GAA performance analysis.
After a short while, and further exploration of the different tiers available in Nacsport, I decided to upgrade my licence to Nacsport Basic Plus with some advice from the guys at AnalysisPro.
This enabled me to generate a more sophisticated set of team statistics using categories and descriptors of events via the fully customisable buttons template and Data Matrix, which I could now export to MS-Excel to generate (after some work using formulas, charts and graphs within excel) a Stats Summary Dashboard of KPI’s agreed with team management. This has proved invaluable to the team in providing statistical and video analysis, assisting in identifying areas of strength, and areas where we may have needed to improve upon.
I soon realised the potential to quickly scan through events in presentations, which is a great way of identifying field positions to draw Shot Charts and Kickout Charts (for this I use MS-PowerPoint). This has provided another layer of analysis to quickly identify patterns of opposition play.
Workspace Design: Nacsport for GAA
The Nacsport interface, coupled with the ability to resize and organise different windows around the screen, provides users the opportunity to create a dynamic workspace for their video analysis processes and requirements.
Below, you can see how Tony has organised his windows to create an efficient workspace allowing him to easily conduct his analysis.
I’ve designed my Nacsport workspace to suit my needs. I have a large video window and a vertical button template to the right of the screen, using all 50 buttons that are allowed in Basic Plus. I keep my register control window and play by play table at the top to see my analysis as I work.
Exporting to Excel: Nacsport for GAA
The Nacsport video analysis software provides a variety of options for exporting your video analysis presentations, resources and data. The Nacsport matrix to Excel export option and timeline XLS export options, give lots of ways for getting your data out in different formats and opens the door for further number crunching in Microsoft Excel.
Below is an example of how Tony has exported his data from Nacsport then further manipulated it in Excel.
I use the Nacsport matrix output to Microsoft Excel to feed this data into my Excel sheet, which generates my Stats Summary dashboard automatically. This has been a game changer for me.
Data Visualisation: Nacsport for GAA
By using Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint, Tony has created some great data visualisations with impactful outputs that are based on the data the generated by analysing with Nacsport video analysis. You can see an example of these below, where Tony was presenting his analysis data from the All Ireland Senior Football Championship final between Dublin and Mayo on the 19th December 2020.
The shot analysis charts are generated in Microsoft PowerPoint, by reviewing the relevant video clips I added into my Nacsport presentation windows. The Scoring Timeline is similarly generated in PowerPoint, though some of the statistical data included in this sheet is linked to PowerPoint from the earlier Excel worksheet.
From those fantastic visualisations above, it is clear Tony has some experience when working with Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint, but what if you don’t?
No need to worry!
Built in statistical dashboards and heatmaps
With the help of the Nacsport dashboard feature, you can easily create visual statistical dashboards ‘in house’, without having to leave Nacsport. One of the best things with a Nacsport Dashboards is that the data being shown will be linked to video clips from the analysis, making it an interactive resource for showing the key context behind this data (the relevant moment in the video) and for quickly finding clips to add into presentation windows for further review and sharing for example.
The built in Nacsport dashboard is also something Tony is looking to add to his GAA performance analysis workflows.
In addition, from Nacsport Scout Plus you can even use the graphic descriptor tool to build pitch maps from within the software. This helps to replicate the type of outputs that Tony was creating for his Shots Analysis in the images above, as you can mark points on a pitch to relate to specific clips (with different colours and shapes depending on their outcome).
We were all delighted to hear this feedback from Tony about his overall experience when using Nacsport for GAA analysis:
In summary, Nacsport has helped me to streamline my workflow, permitting me more time to deliver a higher quality analysis than previously. The ability to stitch together video files from a camcorder quickly is one example of this. As with all software there is a learning curve, but the support resources available online help enormously.”
More of Tony’s work
I would like to say a big thank you to Tony Bambrick for sharing his work and for providing further insights to the ways that he uses Nacsport for GAA by creating these impactful analysis reports. If you don’t follow Tony already, make sure you check out his work on Twitter!
You can start a free 30 day trial of any Nacsport version to try these processes out for yourself. By making contact, I can get you started with a trial and learn more about what you would like to achieve. This will help me to ensure you are on the most suitable version and using the best workflows possible!