Boston, MA, Oct. 30, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Catapult (ASX: CAT), the global leader in sports technology solutions for professional teams, today announced a new deal with the Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby, and Premiership Women’s Rugby that will bring Catapult’s innovative athlete monitoring technology and video integration to rugby union in England. The strategic partnership marks a significant milestone in advancing athlete performance with the national England men’s and women’s rugby teams, Premiership Rugby, and Premiership Women’s Rugby.

As the preferred provider of athlete monitoring technology, Catapult will make available to the men’s and women’s national teams, Premiership Rugby, and Premiership Women’s Rugby teams its full performance analysis suite, including the Catapult Vector System, offering a comprehensive understanding of both team and individual performance. The integration of Catapult Vector with MatchTracker gives coaches a detailed visualization of on-field dynamics, allowing them to sort, filter, and rapidly access insights enabling practitioners and coaching staff to identify patterns and trends in player performance. Additionally, Focus captures multi-angle video and data during games and practices, enhancing decision-making and tactical adjustments. Together, these tools will empower the Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby, and Premiership Women’s Rugby practitioners and coaches to make informed choices on strategy, athlete performance, and injury management.

The agreement also includes the Catapult Vector Rugby Analytics Suite, Elite Vests with integrated heart rate, and ClearSky Local Positioning System (LPS) to further enhance player performance tracking and analysis. The Catapult Vector Rugby Analytics Suite is specifically designed for rugby, employing advanced algorithms to monitor key actions such as scrums, kicks, lineout jumps, and contact involvements. The Elite Vest for women athletes optimizes sensor placement for improved heart rate signal quality, while the Elite Vest for men athletes enhances fit and data accuracy with an inlaid chest band that stabilizes sensors during intense movement. ClearSky LPS will be installed in national team venues including the Allianz Stadium and Honda England Rugby Performance Centre in addition to a number of domestic training venues including for teams such as Bristol Bears and Gloucester Rugby providing low-latency, real-time data during training and matches.

“We are excited to begin this new partnership with three of the world’s most respected rugby organizations, the Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby, and Premiership Women’s Rugby,” said Kieran Dannatt, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Development of Catapult. “By investing in Catapult’s technology, the Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby, and Premiership Women’s Rugby are building a sustainable model for the future of rugby. This partnership ensures that the Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby, and Premiership Women’s Rugby teams have cutting-edge technology that enhances both team and individual athlete performance and player care, further solidifying English rugby’s position as a leader in rugby innovation.”

With Catapult, the Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby, and Premiership Women’s Rugby will gain significant advantages in data management and sharing across club, league, and game levels. Each national and domestic team using Catapult will establish its own performance thresholds and operational zones, enabling tailored training strategies throughout the season. This data will seamlessly synchronize with the league’s and domestic team’s overall data architecture, enhancing information flow and improving insights across all levels of rugby. Additionally, Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby, and Premiership Women’s Rugby players will benefit from consolidating their performance data directly to Catapult OpenField Cloud. This integration will enable enhanced performance analysis, strategic planning, and collaboration across teams, leagues and the National Governing Body.

“It has been a long-time objective to align player tracking technology across all areas of the professional game,” said Duncan Locke, Head of Technical Performance at the Rugby Football Union. “The partnership between the Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby, Premiership Women’s Rugby and Catapult will provide players and practitioners access to a range of best in class products to optimize how players are managed and drive game-wide insights through standardized data capture and integrated data and video analysis. Utilizing Catapult ClearSky technology we can now monitor performance with unprecedented precision. This not only elevates individual and team performance understanding, but also supports player management through consistently and efficiently capturing and monitoring player workloads and movement patterns across all club and international environments, aligning with the Rugby Football Union’s commitment to player welfare and safety.”

”Premiership Rugby is excited to partner with Catapult Sports, making available the latest player tracking technology to our teams,” said Matt Cross, Head of Science and Medical Operations at Premiership Rugby. “By providing practitioners with comprehensive and individualized data using Catapult technology, we empower them to make informed decisions to prioritize player performance and safety. It has been a long-term ambition to align player-tracking technology across the elite game in England, and this partnership provides the opportunity to make this technology available to clubs, allowing for seamless data sharing to support players transitioning across different environments from both a performance and welfare perspective.”

“As a player, having access to detailed performance insights like this is a game-changer for us and ensures every player in Premiership Women's Rugby can operate at the highest level," said Marlie Packer, Co-Captain for the Saracens Women. “Catapult athlete monitoring technology will allow us to track our progress, manage our workload, and refine our skills in ways we couldn’t before as we play in the best women's league in the world. It’s exciting to know that we’re supported by tools designed to prioritize both our performance and our long-term health. This partnership is helping us elevate our game and align with the highest standards in rugby.”

To learn more about Catapult’s solutions for Rugby, visit https://www.catapult.com/sports/rugby. 

About Catapult 

Catapult exists to unleash the potential of every athlete and team on earth. Operating at the intersection of sports science and analytics, Catapult products are designed to optimize performance, avoid injury, and improve return to play. Catapult works with more than 4,200 elite teams in over 40 sports across more than 100 countries globally. To learn more about Catapult or to inquire about accessing performance analytics for a team or athlete, visit us at catapult.com. Follow us at @CatapultSports on social media for daily updates.

About Rugby Football Union
The RFU is the national governing body for rugby union in England.  The organisation aims to enrich lives, introduce more people to rugby union and develop the sport for future generations. The goal is to achieve this by strengthening and uniting rugby union in England and producing consistently winning England teams.

The RFU is a members’ organisation of professional and amateur rugby clubs, referee societies and Constituent Bodies (geographic or national unions of clubs) that reinvests all profits back into the sport.

About Premiership Rugby
Premiership Rugby is the organisation that manages the top league in English club rugby – Gallagher Premiership Rugby.

It acts for its shareholder clubs in all major commercial and strategic negotiations with media and sponsorship partners of the league, as well as with other rugby governing bodies.

About Premiership Women’s Rugby
Premiership Women's Rugby has been established to deliver a ten-year strategy for women’s rugby in England. As part of that strategy a new, nine-team, Premiership Women's Rugby league has been launched as a partnership with the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and the clubs.

The ambition for Premiership Women's Rugby is built on a new vision and mission to carry the organisation through the next decade and create a generation of players and fans inspired by world-class club competition.

In the first, historic, season Gloucester-Hartpury were crowned champions, beating Bristol Bears 36-24 in an unforgettable Final at Sandy Park.