Performance Analysis: A National Perspective

A talk given by Hamish Jeacocke on Day 1 of #ACUGCPA18 on 12 February.

Transcript

1. A National View of Performance Analysis
   Hamish Jeacocke AIS
   Link
   

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2. The brief for this session
   • Australian-wide view considering the past and our present
   status
   
   • The System
   
   • The Profession
   
   • Futures
   
   • Informed through 2016/17 visits and ongoing discussions
   across the country
   

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3. The Australian Sports
   System
   • Culturally significant and as such, politically significant
   
   • Dichotomise into professional and non-professional
   sports but many options to categorise
   
   • History of professional sport is varied and fascinating (see
   Gideon Haigh’s The Cricket Wars, Peter Fitzsimmons
   Rugby War)
   
   • Over the last decade seen tremendous changes in the
   way we watch, attend and play sport - BBL, women’s
   football leagues, The Australian Open
   

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4. Non-Professional / Major
   Games sports
   • Usual reference point is 1976 and the zero-point for
   Australian gold-medals
   
   • Perhaps the largest factor contributing to the construction
   of the Australian Institute of Sport in 1981
   
   • The vision was to provide Australian sport with the
   facilities and support required to compete on the
   International stage
   
   • Even the professional sports weren't really so in 1981
   

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5. The AIS
   • Success was an iterative process with peak medal
   performances achieved during the Sydney 2000 and Athens
   2004 Summer Olympic Games
   
   • During this time the number of sports supported increased
   as did funding
   
   • Although a golden period still mired in discussions about
   how to fund the system, HECs-style-repayment approaches
   and questions about balance between elite and grass-roots
   sport
   
   • See ausport.gov.au for comprehensive history and timelines
   

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6. The NIN
   • Over this period the need for DTE support and state-
   funded institutes were established
   
   • Largely responsible for development athletes but
   scholarships funded elite athletes
   
   • Focus upon state-representation
   

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7. System Status 2018
   • A system evolving
   
   • Focus upon support within DTE, sport-ownership of
   business and performance
   
   • AIS nearing 40 and the system looks very different - from
   a societal perspective and the international sporting
   landscape (expectations ever higher)
   

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8. System Status 2018
   • The NIN network supporting sports across Olympic,
   Paralympic and Commonwealth Games programs
   
   • AIS role has been in supporting national programs
   
   • Across both categories, the access and application of
   services to augment performance can be viewed as on a
   spectrum
   

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9. The Profession
   • Leverage Professor Lyons’ early discussions and move to
   current status
   
   • AIS Performance Analysis established in 2002 under Prof
   Keith Lyons
   

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10. How many Performance Analysts are there in
    Australia?
    

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13. The Profession
    • Despite the significant history and changes to sport, the
    growth of support services the professional structure
    hasn't kept pace - regulation, PD, advocacy, connection
    
    • In the UK, there is the BASES system and additional to
    this the International Journal of Performance Analysis in
    Sport (IJPAS) accreditation and the English Institute of
    Sport
    
    • We are still in a growth phase with a mix of FT, PT and
    casual roles
    

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14. How do we define the role?
    • Questions that largely pertain to behaviour on the field of
    play, the actions and interactions
    
    • We seek to examine strategy (plans) and tactics (the
    actions)
    
    • Not all roles demarcated so clearly with general sport
    science duties required
    

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15. The institute performance
    analyst
    • Sport mix
    
    • Match-day roles and DTE roles
    
    • Typical working with a highly specialised support crew of
    sport scientists / sports medicine providers
    (Biomechanist, Skill Acquisition specialist, Physiologist,
    S&C, Sports Physician, Physio, Psychologist, etc)
    
    • Research influence to project work
    
    • Domestic and international travel
    

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16. The football performance
    analyst
    • Match-day and training roles
    
    • Work with many coaches but one sport
    
    • Project-based work during a season
    
    • Technology enablers
    
    • Heavy domestic travel
    

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17. Is there a difference
    overseas?
    • Each system varies according to factors discussed earlier -
    funding, cultural significance, professional leagues,
    performance drivers
    
    • Premier League - typical PA with match day/training
    responsibilities, development squad PAs, recruitment-
    focussed roles (not always separate)
    
    • EIS - 30 odd PAs embedded with sports, similar to our
    institute PA roles, travel with sports
    
    • All successful nations have well-developed sports systems,
    individual to their people, their culture and their view of sport
    

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18. Learning
    • 2008 - minimal units, no post-grad, research pathway only
    
    • Emergence of pathways for post-graduate qualifications over
    past 3 years ACU, UC, LaTrobe
    
    • Online courses proliferating in PA, coding languages, data
    science, data visualisation, data management, design-
    thinking, +++++
    

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19. Futures - what is on the
    horizon?
    • AIS role continues to shape towards national leadership in
    structure more so than action-led approach of the past
    
    • In conjunction with 2016/17 discussions, Olympic and
    Commonwealth Games preparations, merging trends
    seen across industries these are for consideration
    

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20. 1. Accreditation
    • Born out of the Essendon scandal and the “darkest day of
    Australian sport”
    
    • Focusses on professionalism and scientific process
    
    • Offers pathways for ongoing development, regulation of
    practice and a degree of quality assurance
    
    • Early days, AEP took 15-20 years to become what it is
    today
    

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21. 2. Community of practice
    • Theme, mixed research and technical workshops or
    conferences
    
    • Small communities - MS NIN Network, NRL, Cricket
    
    • Connect and engage within and across
    
    • Connection, sharing, common goals, advocacy
    

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22. Project GC
    

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24. Link
    A performance question marketplace
    

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25. Thinking about what you’ve seen and
    heard about AI, what role do you think it
    has in our area?
    

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26. 3. The computers are
    thinking!!!
    • Machine learning, deep learning and artificial intelligence (Primer:
    Whats the difference? )
    
    • Using advanced methods to “teach” programs to learn patterns in data
    
    • Already well applied think Siri, Google, etc
    
    • Will impact our work in two ways
    
    • Automation
    
    • Augmented decision support
    

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28. What if tomorrow, Company X releases a new product
    allowing automated capture, code, database and upload.
    The product is priced at under $30,000 per year (well
    under the cost of a FT analyst) and has been designed for
    coaches as the users
    

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29. What does an All-Star Performance Analyst look
    like to you? Write down 5 - 10 points to describe
    this person.
    

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30. An All Star?
    • Data literacy
    
    • Critical thinker
    
    • Problem solver
    
    • Communicator
    
    • Influencer
    
    • Wide perspective
    

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31. Which races should we enter?
    What’s the optimal approach to the relay?
    Is our goal of unpredictable performance the
    advantage we think it is?
    Momentum is a problem for us, but, is momentum
    really a thing?
    What is that the coach is hoping we will be doing,
    what does performance mean to them?
    

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32. From doing to being
    • A move from tool
    skills to professional
    skills
    
    • Link
    

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33. Resources to further your
    own national perspective
    • Sporting Nation - ABC iview series on sport in Australia
    
    • The Australian system - a brief history up to 2012
    
    • MIT Sloan 2018 - largest analytics conference in the US
    
    • ESSA Accreditation - Sports Science
    
    • Performance Analyst Profiles - interviews with PAs in different industries and countries
    
    • Sam Hinke - a high performance leader with long-term vision and contrarian approach
    
    • Tennis Australia and the Aus Open 2018 - recent application of analytics in tennis
    
    • Advanced Football Analytics Podcast and Analytics FC Podcast - iTunes (interviews with
    analysts discussing techniques and experiences)
    
    • How to support a champion - Steve Ingham - practical tips
    

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34. Thank you
    

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