Ulster Rugby vs Llanelli Scarlets

for the Ulster team to keep improving and being successful. The software we, and all professional rugby teams use is called ‘SportsCode’. This software allows us edit our training and matches very quickly. During a live match the team stats such as lineouts and scrums are coded. After the match the analysts work through the night to generate all the individual codes. In the morning the match is fully coded and the information is sent to an app so that the players can watch the game and check their own personal contributions.

Q5. What would you say is the most enjoyable aspect of your role and what is the most challenging aspect? The most challenging parts of the role are mining through the mountain of data that we create, attempting to find the important pieces of information that will help us to be more successful. Without doubt the most satisfying aspect is when I can see that a piece of high quality analysis has identified a weakness in the opposition which clearly helped the team to win a match. In the past we have identified specific opposition players that we can target. A good example happened when we played Montpellier in the European Cup in 2014. They had a short right winger who was 5”10, so we devised a play where we kicked the ball to his wing and 6”5 Robbie Diack was hidden on the touchline so he could contest the ball in the air. Robbie caught the ball and scored the first try of the match that we ended up winning 27-16!

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