Performance Analysis: Asking Better Questions | Fintan Kennedy

No, feel free to tread through any bits of your research, Anton, there as we go along.

I think it was important you mentioned, like, autonomy and scaffolding so close to each other 'cause I think, like, that scaffolded autonomy is really important.

A lot of coaches say, "Oh, I can't give them too much power." No, but you can construct it in a way.

I want to jump back a little bit.

We might see that a small bit in action here.

You spoke about, like, your game model and co-design.

Without giving away, like, secrets of teams you've worked with, you used hypotheticals or examples from years before.

What might that look like in terms of, like, a couple of steps of a process? Just so, like, people listening or what-- Give me an example of that.

You, you know, within reason.

Well, I think, I, I think the first, the first thing I'll say on it, John, is, um, and I, I lecture, I'm lucky enough to lecture in performance analysis now, and I also do the work with the, a number of other analysts in, in delivering the, um, delivering the GA introduction to performance analysis and, um, but the first thing I, I would say is you need to go in and know your coach and understand your coach.

And our job as analysts, and this isn't being self-deprecating or anything.

Our job as analysts is to know, not to think.

So it's that I know we had 10 kickouts, not I think we won five of them.

You know, I need to know.

And if I don't know how many we won, all I can say is, "I know we won-- we had 10." Um, and, and, and because that's about building that trust.

So but the first thing is go in and understand your coach, and it's go in as if you were going into a new sport as well, I think.

Um, and understand, don't go in with a pre-d- pre kind of conception of, uh, this is what we do in football, and this is the way it should be.

This is what we do in hurling.

I, I go in as if I'm going into ice hockey when I go into a new coach and have an understanding of, okay, what do you, what's important to you? So it might be our tackles.

So what do you, what do you consider a tackle? Uh, one of the thing, the language, it's, for me, the performance analysis give you the opportunity to have a shared language and have, have shared definitions.

Um, you know, and, and how do we...

You know, Nick Winkelman did some great stuff on the, from the S&C side of, you know, how, how you use words and analogies.

What is it? A picture paints a thousand words, and an analogy paints a thousand pictures.

So can we get analogies within that? And one of the things that comes up a lot is people talk about turnovers.

And I've often looked down the room when, when the coach might talk about turnovers, and I know from the blank faces of a couple of people in front of me and the anxiety, they're trying to think, "Well, is that us winning the ball, or is that me giving away the ball that we're talking about here?" So can we call it something? So for example, I would have called it a steal and a giveaway.