An astrophysics PhD student from County Armagh has blended his passion for science and his love for Gaelic football to lead his club to a 135-year historic win.
Eamon McGleenan plays for his local GAA team and is a PhD student at Queen’s University, where he is a member of the Predictive Sports Analytics (PSA) research team.
Earlier this year, Eamon and his supervisor Professor David Jess, approached O’Connell’s GAC Tullysaran with an opportunity to work together. The researchers, who work with soccer, rugby and Gaelic clubs were kick-starting a new project and needed a club to get on board.
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The club had very little success in its history but over the last decade they’ve been on the rise. However, they were striving for more and gladly joined forces with the Queen’s team to add another dimension to their set up.
While the Queen’s researchers were optimistic, they had no idea just how successful the project would be.
Eamon explains: “Over a period of five months, our team at Queen’s analysed over 550 million individual measurements from the squad using STATSports GPS hardware. It was a very detailed analysis, which included metrics linked to the speed of players, their accelerations, directional changes and heart rates.
“Our academic foundations are in astrophysics, so we applied mathematical models to the Big Data we obtained from the athletes. This allowed us to examine how the athletes evolved over time and we then provided key insights for the coaching staff, who then generated bespoke training routines and match tactics.
“It was a close collaboration with the management team, and we were absolutely blown away when Tullysaran won their league by just two points in July. The team were crowned the winners of the Armagh Intermediate Football League 2A and have now been promoted for the first time in 135 years to the top-flight Senior Football League. They will move into Senior Football in March, a fantastic achievement for a rural club with less than 500 members.”
The research team is now hoping to continue building on this success and plan to use physics and maths to revolutionize how data is processed.
Professor David Jess from Queen’s University explains “As a team we embrace knowledge transfer between physics and mathematics and the world of sports science.
“In doing so, we are helping to revolutionise how data is processed, visualised, and disseminated. The collaboration with Tullysaran highlights how these novel modelling approaches can help revolutionise the success of sports clubs around the world.
“The work also showcases the commitment of Queen’s University in working with rural communities and volunteer organisations across Ireland.”
Tullysaran manager Pauric McGlone has said that the partnership has been invaluable. He comments: “The statistical insight provided by PSA is of great use and I like how it lets me get the balance of training right, especially in the run-up to match day.
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“The reports provided by the Predictive Sports Analytics team were easy to read and interpret, which also adds a bit of competition into the squad that ensures players are conditioned in a way that allows them to perform at their best.”
The research was supported by Queen’s University Belfast’s Strategic Research Impact Fund and the Department for Economy’s Higher Education Innovation Fund.
The Predictive Sports Analytics team at Queen’s includes Mr Eamon McGleenan, Professor David Jess, Dr Samuel Grant, Dr Lisa McFetridge, and Mr Jack Brown. All of the members are part of the AI Collaboration Centre and the School of Mathematics and Physics at Queen’s.
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