Unique new sports app hailed as a gamechanger for coaches, mentors and players.

A unique sporting App that addresses the vexed issue of safety for young players who compete on various different teams, has been developed by a Co. Kildare scientist.

Adrian Geissel, from Naas, has devised a clever App that allows sports coaches and managers track and share crucial information on their players from a secure data platform.

It is specifically aimed at players who play for multiple teams, often across many sporting disciplines.

SURPASSPORT provides powerful and intuitive team management for savvy mentors whose players play on multiple teams and represent multiple clubs and school, providing timely insights into workload, injury and wellbeing, and informing underage coaching for development, retention and fielding stronger adult teams.

His own background as a coach with Naas GAA Hurling team, together with his experiences as a parent of busy little sportspeople, led Adrian to question how best to combine best practice with sports science.   

“As a Dad of a busy 10 year-old, I was curious about what constitutes a safe and sustainable level of sport. Training provided by GAA encouraged coaching in a child-specific manner, but little about how to answer the above question for my son. I therefore returned to published academic literature, and learnt that consistency and gradual change in workload were key. As a coach to a dozen or so other 10 year-olds, I wondered how I could apply this to the team. I questioned their activity history over the past few weeks and whether it was consistent, or were they at risk of injury from over play? Or simply over tired?”.

“Given my involvement with the GAA I had huge insight that was crucial to the development of SURPASSPORT. I realised that kids who play sport often play more than one, they play for more than one team and represent more than one club and school. Clearly a complex data problem, but one that I had the skills and experience to solve. And more importantly, one that had not yet been solved to any level of satisfaction”. 

“Our vision for SURPASSPORT is to combine best practice and sports science into a comprehensive, easy to use App for coaches and parents, to help each know more about their kids and to help them make informed decisions for their sporting lives”.

“SURPASSPORT builds a comprehensive picture on player athlete readiness, appropriate to their age, but most importantly, keeps a focus on ‘fun’, requesting feedback after every team session and game. After all, if kids are not enjoying sport they won’t practice and won’t stick with it. That’s not good for the player, not good for the team and not good for the club. But know allows coach to respond before it becomes an issue.  It also encourages  a healthy involvement by parents in their child’s sporting prowess/ development . This is so important for all concerned”. 

Adrian says that one of the key advantages of SURPASSPORT is that it helps to encourage kids to stick with sport at an age, which traditionally has seen a sharp drop out rate.

“Understanding each kids’ individual situation is especially important for kids aged between 10 and 14 years, as they start playing competitively in school, they’re old enough for midweek evening training and club matches become more competitive. It’s also the stage when their bodies are changing, and all the advantages and disadvantages this brings. Statistically, this is also the age with kids are most at risk of quitting sport altogether”.

SURPASSPORT has recently received a ringing endorsement from Basketball Ireland, and Adrian is hopeful that other sporting organisations will take note. 

“Our relationship with Basketball Ireland has strengthened and they are currently rolling out SURPASSPORT to all their international squads and academies as well as recommending the app to affiliated clubs and schools. We are working to replicate this with other national governing bodies, and welcome a conversation on how better information builds stronger and deeper panels of talented players to choose from”. 

“We are refining SURPASSPORT all the time and have just introduced an Injury and Recovery management system which is fully coordinated between home, school, work, team(s) and medical team. This is a vitally important for  tracking symptoms which helps to ensure a full return to fitness and competition, with full integration into player availability. The intent is to provide guidance to player / parent and coach to exercise patience and minimise the risks of re-injury, unfortunately all too prevalent in sport”. 

“SURPASSPORT continues to innovate, addressing small and sometimes bigger communications and coordination challenges, prevalent in amateur and underage sport: to share pertinent data; to reduce time and effort; to encourage best practice; to reduce risks to volunteer coaches and club officers; and to help young players stick with sport into adulthood, for competition, for health and for belonging. We simply call this Player Welfare”.

“I am very exited about the growth of SURPASSORT and believe it will become synonymous with sports management in Ireland and beyond”.