Measuring Performance with Stephen Maxwell - No Other Game Around

Stems from a recent tweet:

What does this mean?

Well, general society values outcomes meaning; the result. Think about the last time you went to or participated in a sporting event. Usually the first questions you are hit with post game is:

“Who won?”, “Did you win?” or “Did you score?”.

These point to the fact that outside of the team or individual athletes inner circle, society only takes value in results and one of the main reasons is because of the media. We are what we see and do. The back pages of any newspaper or sports news site show the outcomes of a game or sporting event in bold and you have to look through the finer points to seek out how an individual or a team actually performed.

But if you look at any sport, there is only one winner, so how many losers are there? From the outside every other competitor or team is, but from the inside, each of those teams or individuals could have made huge strides in their own development, let’s remember, success doesn’t happen overnight.

Take Tyrone winning the All-Ireland men’s final in 2021, before the Sunday Game was even over, they were already talking about “can they repeat the feat in 2022”. Outcomes/Results are short lived, yes winning feels good but only for a brief moment. Emotions are short lived and don’t last long, so if you ask an athlete, who remembers the individual results, they will share feelings they had through relationships made and memories shared rather than outcomes.

To create sustainable long term development which in turn can bring success, one of the key factors is in measuring and tracking performance. If you are new to measuring and tracking performance, it doesn’t have to cost you the world, yes there are fantastic apps and platforms to support coaches to evaluate performance but you can do it simply with a pen and paper. The key with measuring performance though is in the tracking. Consistency is so important, if you keep changing what you measure, how do you know if something is working.

Let’s start with looking at measuring a team performance, in this case it is an Intermediate Men’s Gaelic Football team in Meath.

So what do you measure and when?

You’ve probably heard of fitness testing before, so in terms of working with this group we set fitness testing key points in the season:

• Pre-season week 1

• Pre-League (6-8 weeks from test 1)

• End of League

• Pre-Championship

• Post-championship

Examples of tests that may occur:

• 1km time trial

• Sprint test

• Jump test

• A range of push/pull strength tests

Reasoning:

By measuring the above we can give direct feedback to players on where they are in relation to the squad as a whole, a teammate vying for the same position, opposition player metrics, previous season indicators so that they know where improvements are needed. Consistency is key, the environment of the testing must match on each occasion so we tend to do it on astro turf and in the gym as the weather can impact on results.

If you are working with a team/teams over a period of seasons by keeping track of all data you can gain a better understanding of where players and teams need to be at particular stages throughout the course of a season and you can use them as a baseline.

Using the model above we sit down with the coaching team in preseason and decide what the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) will be for the league.

We decide on a list of indicators we wish to track from game to game and the reasons as to why they are being tracked so that the coaching team can then design sessions based around them and also that the players have a clear understanding of what each KPI means. We set up a tagging system to record those KPI’s during live games which is relayed to the management team to be used in collaboration with their knowledge and experience to make decisions in-game.

After every game the KPI’s are collated and analysed hand in hand with in-game footage and the team receive a breakdown of all the results, which then allows coaches and players to action their work on’s (point with which they need to improve on) based on those performance indicators.

In the above is an example of the KPI’s for the attack of this men’s team. We are tracking 5 performance indicators but depending on how much detail a coaching teams wants, each one can be broken down even further as shown here:

• Kick Outs – Short/Medium/Long – Won Clean/Won the Break/Lost clean/Lost the Break

• Turnovers to the opposition – Lost the ball in the Tackle, Lost through Hand Pass, Lost through Kick Pass, Technical Foul Committed

• Attacks – Where did they originate/Where did they finish

• Shots – Wide/Goal Saved/Hit the Post/Dropped Short

• Scores – Points/Goals & who scored them

In the photo above is an example of the KPI’s for the defensive standards of the team. Again we are focusing on 5 performance indicators and each one can again can be broken down to give a better understanding for the coaches and players of where issues may be arising in-game or post game:

• Opposition Kick Outs – Short/Medium/Long – Won Clean/Won the Break/Lost Clean/Lost the Break

• Turnovers We Won – Lost the ball in the Tackle, Interception of a Hand Pass, Interception of a Kick Pass, Technical Foul Committed

• Attacks – Where did they originate/Where did they finish

• Shots – Wide/Goal Saved/Hit the Post/Dropped Short

• Scores – Points/Goals & who scored them

All of these statistic’s will support the coaching team to make decisions during games and through analysing the statistics after every game, highlight strengths and weaknesses which then can be addressed in training and Key Performance Indicators set for the following game.

As mentioned above, the resources and tools available differ to everyone, but the easiest of them all is a pen and paper. Other tracking resources you can use are:

• Microsoft excel

• Dartfish easy tag

• Hudl

• Isport analysis

• Performasports

So why should you be measuring performance as a tool with your athletes or teams:

• Allows coaches to give specific feedback

• Can be used to set team targets game by game

• Can be used to set individual athletes’ targets

• Can be used to track team/individual development

• Allows for more objective decision making

• Allows coaches insights on athletes or teams strengths and weaknesses

• Showcases areas needed for development in training

Measuring Performance allows you as a coach to set realistic targets game by game, season by season without the highs and lows of wins and losses and to focus on key indicators to track development. Remember you can win and play badly and lose and play well, but without measuring performance how can you share that message with everyone.

Whatever your sport is, there is No Other Game Around.

A big thanks to Stephen Maxwell of NOGA for this piece. You can follow him on Twitter @stephenmax2404