St Mary's College RFC: how live analysis helps an AIL-winning side make better decisions
Updated: 17 hours ago
Four years ago, St Mary's College RFC sat in the bottom half of Division 1B of the All-Ireland League. Last season they won the AIL.
Analyst Gordon Smyth has been there for the whole climb. We spoke to him about how his work moved from post-match review to live analysis that shapes decisions while the game is still on. He walked us through the setup in the coach's box, the jump from Nacsport Scout to Nacsport Pro, and how players and coaches use Nacsport Hub through the week.
At a glance
Club | St Mary's College RFC, Dublin |
Teams | First XV (All-Ireland League Division 1A) and U20s |
Analyst | Gordon Smyth |
Products | Nacsport Pro, Nacsport Live, Nacsport Hub, AP Minifeed |
Matchday setup | Live close-angle feed, wide angle and drone, all synced for review |
Results | Promoted from 1B, a home semi-final in their first season up, then the AIL title |
The challenge: analysis that arrived too late
Gordon's role began as post-match analysis. The coaches wanted a close look at defence and discipline, and that work is still at the heart of his week.
As the club climbed the divisions, the role grew. Post-match review shows players and coaches what happened and why. Live analysis adds a second layer: information the coaches can use while the game is still on.
"It started off as post-game, and it's now become more about hopefully influencing the result in a positive way."
There was also the question of resources. Like most clubs outside the professional game, St Mary's doesn't have a department of analysts. Gordon handles the analysis himself.
He doesn’t do it alone. Brian Holohan has filmed first-team matches for the past 12 seasons. Tim Smyth, a student at the college, learned analysis through the Nacsport Hub module Gordon teaches in his day job as a teacher at St Mary’s College. On matchday, Gordon also runs the club’s live stream and on-screen graphics.
With that much running at once, every click counts.
Inside the crow's nest: the matchday setup
St Mary's has a secure room on top of the clubhouse. The club calls it the crow's nest. Here's what runs from it on a home game:
Two cameras on a dual-head tripod. A volunteer films a close angle and a wide angle side by side.
AP Minifeed on the close angle. The feed goes live into Nacsport Pro, where Gordon tags the game as it happens.
A drone for the end-on view. The footage is recorded and synced with the other angles after the game.
A second monitor with a live stats dashboard. It updates with every tag.
Nacsport Live on an iPad for the coaching staff, with the dashboard now built into the app.
At half time, the coaches can use Nacsport Live on the iPad to look back at clips from the first half.
One voice to the pitch
The head coach sits on the bench. The assistant coach and director of rugby sit up in the crow's nest with Gordon. Anything that needs to reach the pitch goes through the assistant coach on the radio.
"It keeps it clean. It's one voice coming from the coaches. Match situations can be quite pressurised, so it's streamlined."
Why tag live?
Gordon's answer is simple: "Because you can influence the outcome."
During a game he tags turnovers, penalties by type, scrums and lineouts. The dashboard turns those tags into numbers the coaches can act on. Nobody has to ask him how many penalties the team has given away. It's on the screen.
"You can use that information in a way that'll actually influence the result, rather than afterwards saying, 'We lost because of so and so.'"
From Scout to Pro: fewer clicks, more information
Gordon used Nacsport Scout for two seasons before moving up to Nacsport Pro this season.
"I would say I've scratched about 20% of the capabilities."
That 20% is already making a difference. He picked out four features.
Clustered buttons
One click now records the category and the detail behind it. In the live game, a penalty button also captures the penalty type, and both feed straight into the dashboard.
After the game he goes further. His tackle button breaks each tackle down by outcome: effective, less effective, soak, scramble, offload or missed.
"It's less clicks for more information. That's a big leap forward in terms of my time post-game."
Automatic presentations
In Gordon's template, each player is a category and everything else is a descriptor. When the game is tagged, individual player clip presentations build themselves. The same goes for scores, which are ready to share on social media within minutes.
It also makes one-to-ones quicker. If a player isn't sure where to improve, a coach can open his clips and say: you've got more soak tackles than effective ones, let's look at those.
Rewinding during the game
Gordon can scrub back through the live recording without stopping it. If he misses an action or a coach wants a second look, he goes back, tags the clip or reviews the moment, then jumps straight back to live.
Tagging from anywhere
Plenty of AIL clubs stream their games. Gordon pulls those YouTube streams into Nacsport Pro and tags away games or opposition footage from home.
After the final whistle: Nacsport Hub
Both the first team and the U20s use Nacsport Hub for everything after the game. Footage, presentations and clips all live there.
Three angles, one place
Each game goes up with three angles stacked together: the close, the wide and the drone. Coaches and players can switch between them on the same moment.
Every coach has their own tagging window
The coaches do their own game reviews in Hub. The attack coach and the breakdown coach each have a custom tagging window built around their area. They make their own clips and presentations without waiting on Gordon.
Those windows use the club's coaching language. So the shared vocabulary grows naturally, because it's the words on the buttons.
Players get their clips, and use them
Players get a notification when their clips are ready. Gordon can see the viewing figures in Hub, and the players are watching.
Some have gone a step further. They asked for their own tagging window so they could code their own games and reflect on them.
That appetite comes from the squad itself. Most of the players have played at representative level, and they came out of school expecting this kind of feedback. The squad mixes former professionals, academy players at the start of their careers and late developers. Hub gives all of them the same access to their own performance.
Agreeing what good looks like
The AIL has its own Opta coding, and Opta's definitions don't always match Gordon's. He codes a tackle assist, for example, and Opta doesn't. Players notice the gap and ask about it.
Gordon sees those questions as useful. They lead to conversations about what good performance actually looks like, and the definitions get tighter each time.
Tuesday's mistakes, Saturday's fixes
Before a big game, St Mary's films Tuesday training with the drone. The session is reviewed, the squad trains again on Thursday with intent, and they play on Saturday.
"The errors are made on the Tuesday, which is much further out from the match. So the learning happens there as well."
The results
When Gordon joined four years ago, St Mary's sat in the bottom half of Division 1B. Since then:
Promoted in his first season.
Finished second in Division 1A the following year, earning a home semi-final. Gordon doesn't think a promoted side had done that before.
Won the All-Ireland League last season.
The analysis didn't win those games. The players did. What the workflow gives the club is information in the right hands at the right time:
During the game: live stats and clips reach the coaches while there's still time to act.
After the game: layered tagging and automatic presentations cut Gordon's post-match coding time.
Through the week: coaches build their own reviews in Hub, and players watch, query and even tag their own games.
Want a matchday workflow like this?
Nacsport Pro, Nacsport Live, Nacsport Hub and AP Minifeed work together from first camera to final review. Contact the AnalysisPro team and we'll show you how they'd fit your club.
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