In England, we get so little pitch time together as a club, training nights are for exactly that; training. So it was music to my ears when I was told about Coach Logic’s new app.

I was at their app launch and testing day yesterday and I was impressed. We were given tasks to complete and actually told to try and break it. There were a few little glitches, but they will be taken care of before the public launch. The rest of it looked amazing.

Performance Analysis has officially moved away from something you do as a team in front of a projected screen in a meeting room at the hockey club. No more waiting 3-4 days after the game before you finally get to see how you played - good or bad. No more ‘one size fits all’.

Coach Logic have worked hard over the past few years to make performance analysis far more accessible for players and their new app takes it one step further by moving it away from the laptop and onto your phone.

I sat there playing around with the app and listening to the talks, but I’ll be honest, the only thing I was thinking about the whole time was: “How is this going to give my teams an advantage or add value to them?”

Here are some of my thoughts:

The Whatsapp Group can be exchanged for the Coach Logic Messaging platform in the app. On there, the players can message everyone, groups, or individuals. They can share video, pictures, documents, or just chat. This is their space, and it’s something that we can use that is a bit more formal than whatsapp and therefore the (majority of the) content will be performance related.

Videos can be sent to players the evening after a game / the morning after, and they can watch the 2min clip of the game wherever they are. I can send the clip with a short question for them to answer, and the reflection process can begin so much faster. If the video has been sent to a group of them, they can start to have dialogue and debate over their thoughts and opinions. Also, because it is on their phone, they are likely to feel like it’s a normal thing to be doing rather than an onerous task that involves finding a laptop and some time to sit and watch the game again.

I can make sure that players only see the video I need them to see. It’s easy for players to get overwhelmed because they have to sit and watch the whole game back to pick out the important parts for them, or they have to sit and look through all the points that other people need to see and work on. This new platform means that players only see video that is intended for them and their development.

There are so many other points that are great about this app, and there are so many things that would add value to my teams, but the above are a few of the important points.

I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on the live version and sharing it with my teams.