How Stade Rochelais Secured the Best View in the House
In the millionaire’s playground of French top-level rugby, advantages are hard to come by. Successful Top 14 side Stade Rochelais use IP camera technology to gain an edge.
Rather than only invest in players, Stade Rochelais have constructed a brand new state-of-the-art training facility featuring an IP camera setup above all three of their training pitches.
An Internet Protocol camera, or IP camera, is a type of digital video camera that can send and receive data via an internet connection.
With this setup, the Stade Rochelais analysis team has a live panoramic feed of training sessions fed directly into their office—meaning training footage from any of their three fields can be analysed in real time.
Until IP cameras were available, their analysts would manually film sessions and had to wait to analyse video until after the players had left the ground.
This process took several hours of manpower each training session. Now feedback can be provided almost immediately with the IP camera feed.
Stade Rochelais performance analyst Florent Agounine explains the value this camera technology gives for rugby in particular.
"10 minutes after training, the players have their analysis ready for them on Hudl to look at while they have their post-training meal."
“We have three IP cameras at the training centre. One in the indoor arena, which is a wide angle, and two on the outside fields,” Agounine said. “IP Cameras are generally used from the horizontal viewpoint in football, but after consulting with coaches, we were able to adapt our setup with the cameras by placing them at the end of the pitch as it provides a better view for rugby patterns and structures.”
The integration with Sportscode makes the IP camera setup a big time-saver for fellow analyst Matthieu Leroy. “What is recorded outside by our IP cameras is sent directly to Sportscode where we code training live from our office,” Leroy said.
“It’s very quick for us and the players. 10 minutes after training, the players have their analysis ready for them on Hudl to look at while they have their post-training meal. This means players are still engaged and can absorb the information while the training session is still fresh in the mind.”
Agounine and his team have produced specific code windows for lineouts, scrums, backs play and collective team runs, which creates a detailed analysis of the camera recordings they receive daily. After coding these different set pieces, the outputs are sent to position-specific groups via Hudl.
His next goal is to introduce a fourth IP camera that will focus purely on the scrum, an area of the game with several technical components to break down.
Stade Rochelais have already showed innovation by building a dedicated area for scrum training on a slanted surface, which acts as a form of resistance for the forward pack pushing uphill. Agounine’s next goal is to introduce a fourth IP camera that will focus purely on the scrum, an area of the game with several technical components to break down.
As part of Stade Rochelais’ five-year project, the club wants 30 percent of their players to be academy graduates. Leroy outlines how using Sportscode throughout the entire club structure, is helping them achieve this goal.
“You need to learn how to use feedback with video, and we press that you begin to learn when your 16 years old,” Leroy said. “With exposure to video analysis, a player who comes from the academy will not feel lost when he graduates to a professional team. Because the strategies and the names of the announcements and keys we use are all the same across the club, you are already prepared which is an advantage.”
Agounine explains how video analysis is directly linked between all aspects of the club.
“There is always discussion between analysts, the coaches of the academy and the professional coaches,” said Agounine. “We have the same code, stake and strategy, which allows us to move forward together as a club.”
To learn more about how you can use Hudl to fuel the modern game, sign up for one of our online classes, or take a look at our other professional case studies from Premiership Rugby team Leicester Tigers and La Liga football team Deportivo Alaves.
