Most rugby analysis software is not abandoned because it is bad. It is abandoned because it was bought for a club that does not exist - one with a spare analyst, free evenings and players who log into portals. Before you compare the platforms themselves, compare each one against the club you actually run. These are the seven questions we would take into the meeting, in the order they eliminate options.
1. Does it know rugby?
Generic sports video tools make you build rugby from scratch: define every event, from scratch, yourself. Rugby-specific platforms arrive knowing what a lineout, a dominant carry and a turnover are, and their stats mean something in rugby terms from day one. If the demo shows football clips, expect to spend your first month teaching the software the sport before it teaches you anything about your team.
2. Who does the tagging?
This is the question that decides whether the subscription survives the season, and vendors bury it. Every platform produces clips and stats - the difference is whose evening produces them. Self-tagging tools are honest work: powerful, and paid for in hours, every single week. Assisted and done-for-you services cost more per match and cost you nothing on a Sunday night. Be brutally honest about which club you are: if nobody owned the tagging last season, software will not create that person.
3. Does it work with the footage you already have?
If your club owns a Veo, films on a phone, or gets footage from a league stream, the software must take all of it without complaint. Watch for platforms that quietly assume their own camera, their own capture app, or pristine broadcast angles. The right answer to “what footage do you need” is “whatever you have”, and it is worth checking against what cameras genuinely suit rugby before you let a software choice force a hardware purchase.
4. Will players see it without being summoned?
Analysis that lives in a portal reaches the three players who log into portals. The test is whether clips can land where your squad already is - the group chat - cut, named and short enough to watch on a bus. Player-facing delivery sounds like a nice-to-have and is quietly the highest-value feature on this list: it is the difference between analysis as a coaches’ hobby and analysis the squad participates in.
5. Are the numbers ones you will use?
More stats is not better. A club needs a dozen numbers it trusts and revisits - completion rates, collision outcomes, set-piece retention - not four hundred exportable columns. In the demo, ask to see the Tuesday view: what a coach opens the week after a loss. If the answer is a spreadsheet export, the software thinks the analysis is your job.
6. What does the price scale with?
Flat subscriptions punish small programmes and reward heavy use; pay-per-match does the reverse. Neither is wrong, but one fits your fixture list better. Watch the second-year price, the per-seat charges that turn a squad of thirty into an invoice, and anything that charges for the off-season. The good sign is a price that scales with how much rugby you analyse, because that is the thing you are buying.
7. Can you leave?
Ask what happens to your footage, clips and stats if you cancel. The honest platforms let you export; the rest are renting you your own season. A vendor confident in the product does not need the exit blocked.
The checklist, in one place
Rugby-native. Tagging owned by someone real - you, or them. Takes your footage. Reaches players where they are. Numbers a coach opens on Tuesday. A price that scales with use. A clean exit. Score the shortlist against those seven, and the winner for your club - which is not necessarily the winner of the feature comparison - falls out in an evening. Take the list to the committee, and if the committee needs more than a list, this is how to make the case.
Hero photo: Thomas Rydberg, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
