The Nacsport video analysis software is currently in use in over 50 countries and in more than 25 different sports. This is due to it being a user friendly and adaptable software that people can make into their own by using different individualised category templates to register their actions with. By creating different templates, it's up to the users to decide what they want to analyse. So as long as they have a video of their sport, they can analyse it by pressing the corresponding buttons on their template.
In fact, due to the most recent update, users can really make the software their own by customising their front page!
Today I would like to tell you about a mix of schools, colleges and universities that are already using or have started to recently use Nacsport for analysing a variety of different sports.
Firstly, we would like to officially welcome St Marys College (Dublin), who are using a Basic Plus, Scout Plus and Tag&go licence to analyse their rugby performance through coach Jamie Cornett. We also have another college who have been using Nacsport for a number of years to analyse their rugby players and that team is Bicton College. Bicton College have once again renewed their Technical support and update service for their 7 Basic Plus licences, so will continue to benefit from the new features and upgrades that are being continually released.
Sticking with secondary education for now, we would like to thank Portsmouth Grammar School for maintaining their trust in us by continuing to renew their existing Scout Plus licences which are in use by their 2 Rugby masters and Cricket master. We can now also count on their Hockey master as a Nacsport user as Merijn van Willigen is using a Scout Plus licence too.
Another Hockey user comes from Queens College Taunton. There, the hockey coach Ian Haley has upgraded his existing Basic licence to a Basic Plus licence so that he can make use of the more features and workflows that become available with that upgrade.
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Moving into higher education, we would like to say a warm welcome to Buckinghamshire New University, who have established bigger performance analysis provisions for their students by kitting out their computers with 12 Nacsport Basic Plus licences. The students were also made aware of the Nacsport Student Rental licence that we can provide, so some have taken up that offer, enabling them to take their work home and apply their practical analysis skills out in the field.
Another University that makes good use of these student rental licences is University College Dublin (UCD). This year, UCD have renewed their support service for their Scout Plus licence and provided 22 Student Rental licences out to the participants on their coaching course. These students learn how to use the software and apply it out in the field across a wide variety of sports in Ireland. There are the Gaelic games, Football, Rugby, Hockey, Basketball and more sports benefiting from these student’s and their Nacsport licences. UCD also run a project with the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) and were delivered some video analysis guidance sessions by IRFU performance analyst Vinny Hammond. We recently caught up with Vinny over in Dublin and he commented on how easy and user friendly it was to use Nacsport and teach the students different processes with it. Thanks Vinny!
I would like to thank all of our Nacsport users above for their continued trust in who we are and what we provide. Finally, I would like to leave you with this fantastic testimonial from Stephen Behan, which gives more insight into how he used his Nacsport student rental licence in Hurling. Stephen has since gone on to purchase his own full Nacpsort and Tag&go licences, making use of the discount available to students when they finish with their rental licence.
I have been working with a senior hurling team in Dublin, Ireland. For anyone unsure on what hurling is see the following link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgEMvRrOCRI. It is an Irish field game played mainly in Ireland, but also in pockets of Irish communities all over the world and is recognised as one of the fastest field games in the world. I started using the Nacsport software with the team having had no previous experience in performance analysis and it was very much a trial by error process. After a great tutorial with Josh from AnalysisPro, along with the lectures from performance analysis experts, I was able to put together a system that worked for me and the team I was working with.
I began by sitting down with the management team and coming up with their views on what the performance indicators should be. From there I fashioned a template to use with the software. Once I got the hang of filming the games, believe me hurling is not an easy sport to film, I started coding the games and providing videos to the players and management. It was agreed that players would have their video feedback no later than 3 days after each game. This was easy to achieve using Nacsport as the interface is easy to navigate and as I became more proficient in tagging, I was able to get through games quite quickly.
I shared all the performance indicator video clips with management, but with the players, I shared 3 clips with them after each game using password protected Vimeo links. Each of these clips dealt with one particular point and usually had good and bad examples within them. Usually I show the clip in real time, then show it again with stoppages and some graphics on screen. The presentation function makes this really easy to do and was probably my favourite feature of the software. Once I had coded a game I was able to easily sort a selection of clips into a separate folder, edit the length/speed of playback, add in graphics/text, and then save into a short video clip, which was easy to export and share with the team.
A hurling pitch is quite large, approx. 145m, so I found it difficult to cover everything with a side positioned camera. To help assess player movement and tactical trends, I used Go-Pros and telescopic decorator's poles to give me a 30ft high, behind the goal view from each end of the pitch. This was hugely beneficial to highlighting issues with players and Nacsport allowed me to seamlessly stitch these videos together and use whichever angle (or both) I felt was most relevant. I also set up an Excel template into which I could upload my data from each game. Nacsport allows you to export the data straight to Excel ,which meant that I was able to produce charts/tables for the players and management very quickly.
I really enjoyed the process and am looking forward to using Nacsport again next year.