{"id":1101,"date":"2019-09-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/reports\/how-harlequins-avoid-the-risk-of-false-promises-when-it-comes-to-data\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:12:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:12:29","slug":"harlequins-data-analytics-tom-batchelor","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/harlequins-data-analytics-tom-batchelor\/","title":{"rendered":"How Harlequins Avoid the Risk of False Promises When it Comes to Data"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n Sep 10, 2019 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

How Harlequins Avoid the Risk of False Promises When it Comes to Data<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Data & Innovation<\/a> <\/div>\n
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Quins\u2019 Tom Batchelor says data is best used when challenging or affirming existing beliefs.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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The fortunes of Harlequins have transformed under the stewardship of Paul Gustard, the Head of Rugby at the south-west London rugby side.<\/h4>\n
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By John Portch<\/h6>\n

Last season saw Quins go from the relegation-haunted side of the 2017-18 campaign to an upwardly mobile fifth-place finish in the 2018-19 Gallagher Premiership.<\/p>\n

Gustard, who is set to speak at the 2019 Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London, has been busily effecting change behind the scenes at Quins since his appointment last summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaul wants challenge and he wants an environment where everyone can challenge the status quo,\u201d Tom Batchelor, the Head of Sports Science & Conditioning at Quins, tells the Leaders Performance Institute. \u201cHe\u2019s a very forward-thinking guy and promotes an environment where rather than going for something new we\u2019re going to go for something better; and it might turn out that the better thing is something that might have existed for a long time, but where data and information really helps is in giving you some kind of proof of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Data and analytics are the subject of the day as we sit down with Batchelor is discuss the impact of data on the work of the players, coaches and support staff.<\/p>\n

Tom, a good place to start would be to ask you to lay out how data is used at Harlequins.<\/strong><\/p>\n

TB:<\/strong> There\u2019s a huge amount of data generated that we use from a sports science perspective and an analytics perspective and the key to it in this environment is probably the communication of it back. You\u2019ll find that some coaches don\u2019t want graphs etc. it\u2019s literally a chat. A lot of coaches these days are probably clued up on data stuff because they\u2019re out there so long that they are receptive to graphs etc. With the players, there\u2019s 60, which means 60 individuals; some of the guys, it\u2019s easy chatting to them and other guys, when we present back to the group, we might use some more visual techniques etc. but you tend to try to communicate what you want rather than figure out the best way to show off what you know.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that they don\u2019t care but I don\u2019t think a meeting where you spend half an hour explaining something is really beneficial in this environment. We try and keep our meetings fairly short because people\u2019s attention spans, both in sportspeople and business people, their attention spans are really short and time is really precious so we don\u2019t want to give the guys too much.<\/p>\n

You have a banking background but left to become a sports scientist. How has that influenced your approach to using data?<\/strong><\/p>\n

TB:<\/strong> I am an S&C coach who just happens to have a data background but I think, like most areas these days, when I say the answer is in the data I don\u2019t mean deep use of statistics, but, generally, if you\u2019re going to try and quantify if you\u2019re making someone fitter, you\u2019re going to measure a set of results and try something to make them fitter and then you\u2019re going to measure the outcome of it. I do think there is sometimes a tendency in sport, especially externally, to overplay the amount that data does because it is a people industry, it\u2019s motivating, it\u2019s good environments, it\u2019s good people. Data isn\u2019t the centrepiece, it\u2019s more about using data to tell how to do something then finding a way to communicate that and that is rarely in your traditional data formats. You\u2019ll kill off the vibe of a good training session if you start it off with a meeting about advanced statistical analysis \u2013 that\u2019s not the way forward when it comes to training.<\/p>\n

How has data helped to inform and transform your practices?<\/strong><\/p>\n

TB:<\/strong> That\u2019s the thing with sport: it\u2019s very difficult to run it like a clinical study because there\u2019s so many variables, like referees etc. and when you\u2019re judging it off a win and loss or stuff like that it becomes difficult to extrapolate back what is important. But we\u2019ve used data to change the way we\u2019ve trained and to inform the way we\u2019re training and gauge where we\u2019re at but you know sometimes the numbers don\u2019t always tell you the whole story.<\/p>\n

What is your approach to the education component of using data with players, coaches and athletes?<\/strong><\/p>\n

TB:<\/strong> It\u2019s an interesting one. Because describing data as a cultural movement makes me sound quite grandiose, everyone is banging on about how data is changing the world but data has always been there and we\u2019ve just got a different way of quantifying it now. One of the things I\u2019ve found in my role, if you\u2019re going to spend time unpicking what I think are misinterpretations of data rather than pushing forward the case for data. I end up being the one who is not \u2018anti-data\u2019 but anti-some of the reasons that are brought for it because there are a lot of examples out there of bad data and you\u2019ve also got to be careful of false positives and self-fulfilling prophecies. There\u2019s a lot of bad science going on out there as well as good science going in and out of vogue in sports science.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a lot of smart people in the room and it\u2019s about actually trying to use the data intelligently to get to a good idea, not necessarily a good answer but a good way forward, and that\u2019s where I think data is at in sport, especially in rugby because you\u2019ve got a lot of really good people working in it and it\u2019s about the collaborative effort and talking about and walking through problems. No dataset in the world in rugby really tells you how to win a game; and so much of it can come down to team cohesiveness, especially in rugby, which is such a painful sport, your willingness to put your body on the line and that stuff goes far beyond data, that\u2019s about people.<\/p>\n

How is data used in terms of providing player feedback and periodising?<\/strong><\/p>\n

TB:<\/strong> In-season, in terms of data, you need some kind of feedback mechanism as to how tired the lads are and that evolves and that revolves around trust and conversations. Every day we ask wellness questions, the boys are asked to rate how they feel on a scale of 1-5 etc. on sleep, recovery, soreness. But over that year there is ultimately a massive amount of emotional intelligence about what are the right times to push, what are the right times to back off with certain individuals; we try to individualise it as much as possible, we and try and use different recovery modalities and understand the importance of downtime, family time etc. to manage that throughout the season.<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019re in season you do use some objective data but the problem is it\u2019s an emotion; people try to quantify fatigue, and there is a drop-off in external outputs but when you\u2019re talking about fatigue in general over a long period of time; we all experience fatigue at different points in our life, especially when you first have a child etc. and it\u2019s not a 1-10 thing, it\u2019s not \u2018this test shows you\u2019re tired\u2019 it\u2019s a talking to someone thing and that can be the most important thing. Our lads are under an immense amount of mental and physical pressure so the ability to have effective relationships that allow you to get an insight into how they are actually feeling is key and then that\u2019s what you base your periodisation, your planning, and your training.<\/p>\n

Do you often find yourself fending off the snake oil salesmen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

TB:<\/strong> Snake oil\u2019s not really a bad term for it, there is a lot of new tech and we\u2019ve got quite a lot of experienced practitioners on our staff who have probably seen it the first time around already. But the other thing is before we go and purchase something we do quite a thorough process of appraising it; reliability and validity in our setting. There are no doubt other pieces of tech that do apply in other sports and other situations but we\u2019ve found ourselves that because of our environment, they may not actually be suitable, and we just go through an appraisal process with everything that we use.<\/p>\n

How do you look to offset the risk of groupthink or confirmation bias?<\/strong><\/p>\n

TB:<\/strong> I think there\u2019s always that, whether it\u2019s recruitment, just deliberately from the off just try to not recruit people who completely agree with your perspective. We certainly have a lot of conversations in our teams from differing perspectives without people pulling it in different directions. Another part of it is that you try and go outside and visit other practitioners, whether it\u2019s in other sports, and other sports that don\u2019t seem immediately relevant like track & field etc. or when you go and see other business speakers who are talking about systems and processes that often give you a bit of insight into your own practices. I think a big thing as well is that you just need to be aware of that confirmation bias. Everyone\u2019s going to make decisions off it that are biased in their nature but sometimes you\u2019re aware of it and hopefully you don\u2019t fall into that trap too often.<\/p>\n

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Looking for more insight into using data and analytics?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tom Batchelor featured in our recent Performance Special Report: Navigating the Data Maze, in which he spoke alongside the Texas Rangers and Orlando Magic.<\/p>\n