Kitman Labs, the Irish origin but now global platform providing performance intelligence in sports, has announced a new multi-year, multi-partner agreement with the Rugby Football Union and Premiership Rugby in England.
They will continue their work across English rugby union with the senior, pathway (U20 & U18), and GB7 men’s and women’s national teams and professional match officials.
The expansion of the partnership now sees the Performance Medicine Solution in the Intelligence Platform rolled out to senior teams and academies across Premiership Rugby and Premiership Women’s Rugby, women’s pathway (Player Development Groups) and the men’s Championship, for the first time.
The Intelligence Platform will be utilised across the English domestic leagues and international game, unifying and integrating all data in a single integrated platform to support clinical governance, injury surveillance and to optimise player management.
Coaches, practitioners and stakeholders alike will now have a real-time, 360-degree view of each player to support monitoring of load management, inform training plans and game strategy,preparation for international duties and return-to-club play to optimise both player welfare and performance outcomes.
The implementation of the Kitman Labs system is a core player welfare and management pillar of the recently announced Men’s Professional Game Partnership (MPGP), between the RFU, Premiership Rugby and the players union, the Rugby Players Association, which has a vision to create ‘world-leading English teams and thriving professional leagues delivered through a fully optimised performance systems in partnership with our players.’
“The insights and analytics made possible by centralising player medical and performance data streams are essential in helping to advance the health, welfare and performance of our players,” said Simon Kemp, Medical Services Director at the RFU.
“With this technology, our coaches, medical and performance teams will have the data and intelligence necessary to inform decision-making across every department. In addition, by making this system available across the men’s and women’s elite domestic game, we will be able to work collaboratively at a scale to better understand training loads, injury prevention and treatment effectiveness to ensure all players can perform at their best while helping to protect them from injury and illness.”
“Introducing a 360-degree view of combined medical and performance data for all Premiership Rugby players will allow optimal player management to be at the forefront of the English game,” added Matt Cross, Head of Science and Medical Operations at Premiership Rugby.
“The integration of key data streams via the Intelligence Platform will further enhance player welfare and performance decisions via consistent and seamless data sharing between Premiership clubs and England teams.”
“We couldn’t be more excited to renew and expand our partnership with the RFU and Premiership Rugby,” said Stephen Smith, CEO and Founder of Kitman Labs.
“The expansion across the men’s and women’s domestic teams will help provide all stakeholders with a complete, objective picture of player health and readiness. The Intelligence Platform will be a formidable tool for all stakeholders in helping to reduce (and understand) injury risk, manage player workload and enhance performance at every level of the sport.”
Kitman Labs has an established track record of working with top teams, leagues and regulatory bodies across a variety of sports, including rugby, football, basketball and American football. The company’s technology is in use by teams in some of the world’s most elite sporting organisations, including the IRFU, NFL, NBA, NWSL, Premier League, MLS and NCAA.
Kitman Labs is headquartered in Silicon Valley but retains offices in Dublin.
In January 2015 Sport for Business hosted The Business of Sports Science as part of the BT Young Scientist Show. Amid conversations on stage with Paul McGinley, Jim Gavin and more, we presented an Award called the Spark of Innovation. Four companies were shortlisted for the advances they were making in this exciting area, and the winner was selected by the audience of Sport for Business members.
The winner was Kitman Labs who were preparing for a move from their Dublin base to a new office in California.
Today they are setting a new industry standard for how elite sports organisations use data.
The other three companies in the mix were Nutritics, Simply Golf and Gourmet Fuel. Maybe we should look to stage that event again.
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