Stephen Smith, founder and CEO of performance analysis firm Kitman Labs, describes himself as a "self-proclaimed sports science and athletic performance nerd".

The data landscape was far more primitive back in 2008 when, straight out of university, the Irishman initially landed a part-time, pre-season rugby job tackling injury prevention at Leinster. “The ecosystem at that point in time was not all that sophisticated,” he recalls.

Indeed, player injuries were written on a whiteboard and rubbed off when fixed, training plans laid down on paper, photocopied and handed out on the field, while strength and conditioning coaches used Excel to write programmes and athletes filling them out in the gym. They were then put in a ring binder and from there to a storage cupboard housing 10 years of strength programmes.

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That all changed when Michael Cheika, the well-travelled Australian coach, came to Leinster. Off the field, Cheika was a successful entrepreneur, having set up his own distribution company and securing the rights to import jeans brand Paper Denim & Cloth, made famous by Victoria Beckham. It also made Cheika very wealthy.

“That's actually how the whole thing started, because of his fashion label,” says Smith. “When he came to Leinster, he asked questions like what the strength profile of the player looked like for types of injuries. We couldn’t supply the answers.

“He was just blown away because when he started his company, he said everything they did was based on data, the cuts and styles that were making them understand consumer behaviour and patterns. He has a kind of disruptor mentality.”

Given a mandate by Cheika, Smith started to build a longitudinal database on all aspects of the athletes’ life cycle. At the time, Leinster had players like Felipe Contepomi and Brian O’Driscoll who were missing large chunks of the season.

“His belief was that we have the best talent in this club, if we can keep them on the field and keep them healthy, we have as good a chance as anybody at picking up a title,” says Smith.

Collecting everything from biomechanical data, sleep fatigue and mood profiles, Leinster implemented changes to their decision-making patterns on how to manage players and build a picture to reduce injuries. Leinster won the Heineken Cup in 2009, their first European crown.

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The seeds of Kitman Labs had been sown and, three years later, Smith took investment to roll the Dublin-based company out to Silicon Valley where he is based today.

“We didn’t really understand the US market and we attempted to crack that. Full penetration in Ireland and the UK wasn't really going to move the needle for us.”

Kitman Labs, which has over 250 global employees, now works with over 2,000 teams, leagues and regulatory bodies, including the Premier League and NFL, with clients using its database to deliver game plans, scouting and recruitments of their athletes.

With such a vast range of clients, Smith has also learned that every team or club has a different strategy and game plane. “It’s completely unique,” he says.

“I like to understand the findings that the teams are making,” says Smith. “It helps me to stay relevant, stay current and helps me to understand what it is that we're actually doing. It also helps me to make better decisions about where we should be doubling down, where we should be spending more money and being really focused.”

Smith eschews the clichéd Moneyball phrase, instead referring Kitman Labs to being “a true operating system for high performance”.

“What we care about is helping them turn data into intelligence,” he adds. “You can find any tech company in the world that can build you integrations to a whole bunch of different products and build you a product that brings all of that together.

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“Being able to provide the depth and substance to the analytical processes that you're running, and then being able to provide the right answer, insight and right intelligence, that's what's meaningful.

“For teams to get an edge now, it's not just about finding a rich owner. It's about really understanding: how are we deciding who the right players are for our environment, who we retain, who we release?”

From whiteboards at Leinster to sophisticated data analysis for some of the globe’s richest sporting bodies, Smith says he always had an entrepreneurial spirit.

“I was actually extremely happy in my role at Leinster,” he says. “I love the environment. I love the people. But I really just wanted to pursue my passion.”

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