YOU KNOW VINNY Hammond. You’ve seen his face many times.
He’s the man who sits beside Andy Farrell during Ireland games. Hammond often has his head buried in the laptop in front of him and he’ll often be feeding Farrell bits of info as the game unfolds.
The experienced Hammond is an influential, experienced part of the Ireland set-up. He’s been working with the IRFU since 2008, initially as a performance analyst and now as the union’s ‘head of analytics and innovation.’
A former player and coach with UCD RFC, Hammond leads Ireland’s analysis of their own performances and opposition teams, as well as overseeing their use of technology. He has been on two Lions tours in 2017 and 2021 and he’s now in the thick of a World Cup title bid with Farrell’s side.
You’ll often see Hammond and Farrell celebrating key moments during Ireland’s games when the coach cam flashes up, but he explains that it’s a composed environment most of the time.
“Believe it or not, it’s quite calm,” says Hammond. “The only problem in the Stade de France is it’s just so noisy the last couple of weeks with Irish fans, so it’s impossible to hear each other.
“We’re all mic’d up and in one channel because it’s totally different to anything we’ve experienced before. We’re wearing aviation headsets to try knock out the noise and hear the messages from the touchline.
“Faz is unbelievably calm during a game. He celebrates the wins but then just sits back down and gets himself reset.
“I love the authenticity, he just loves a big moment in a game, the same as he was as a player. He just fully immerses himself in a try or something that we’ve done and then just sits back down, and might ask, ‘Can you show me the last lineout?’ and it’s totally casual.”
Hammond is one of three analysts with Ireland in France for the World Cup, with John Buckley and Alan Walsh also part of the set-up.
Dan Sheridan / INPHO
Hammond is a busy man behind the scenes.
Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
They have another two “data guys” back at base in Dublin who work on possible future opponents. Given the sheer volume of analysis of training and Ireland’s own games that needs to be worked through on the ground in France, it means that the wider team have everything covered.
As for his match-day role, Hammond explains how he’s trying to add little nuggets of information for the coaches as he watches play unfold live or works back through the multi-angle footage during breaks in play.
“You’re just trying to reconfirm or spot something that maybe you thought was going to happen during the week, making sure it is happening, or something that … obviously it’s tricky for the coaches. They have their own areas. So it’s trying to be a little bit detached from the bits that they’re responsible for and trying to give them something that maybe they’re not seeing.
“So if a winger’s changed position late or even the small things like a starting lineup change coming out of a warm-up. So there’s always that period, the first five or 10 minutes, where you’re trying to figure out have they set up the way you were hoping that they would be.”
One of the coaches in the opposition box tomorrow is famed for his analytical approach.
But Hammond points out that Joe Schmidt is not the only coach involved who thinks at that level. The Irish crew of Farrell, Simon Easterby, Mike Catt, Paul O’Connell, and John Fogarty have their own strengths in this regard.
“They’ve all got analytical minds, I think maybe his is one that gets spoken about the most,” says Hammond.
“But if you look at, say, Faz’s approach, you look at Simon Easterby, the detail they’ve gone into with the lineout. Any coach who gets to this level I think has to have a mind that is significantly analytical.
‘And Joe’s detail is well spoken about, but what maybe doesn’t get the same amount of press is the amount of thought that Faz or Paulie, Simon, Catty, and Fogs go into.
“You’re talking about Fogs, it’s like moving six inches left in a scrum, or something like that, and I think that’s where Joe’s reputation built around it. But I think anything that he would have come up with or led in Irish rugby, the remnants are still there.
“We’ve all benefited from that, in the same way that somebody likes Felix [Jones] leaves the Irish system and goes to South Africa. That’s just the natural way it goes and when a coach leaves, they take stuff with them, and they leave stuff behind.”
Laszlo Geczo / INPHO
Hammond with Andy Farrell.
Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO
While Hammond’s role revolves around working with video footage, he is also the numbers man for Ireland. He does deep work involving statistics as they look for any possible advantages that might be shown in the data.
On this front, Hammond provides revealing insight into how the numbers can sometimes be misleading.
“I think there’s one weird one which is our missed tackles,” he says. “People would say missed tackles against teams is so important and it flashes up on TV, but very often, when you look at a missed tackle stat it can be a very positive thing.
“I think teams that defend with a lot of linespeed will miss more tackles and I think if you get off the line, which New Zealand do very well in their defence, you will miss tackles but you’ll wrap them up and soak them up on the other side.
“So I think sometimes people get hooked into a negative on a missed tackle stat, but actually a lot of the teams in the world now that are missing more tackles are conceding fewer points, and I think that’s something that’s been a change because teams are coming off the line so hard and forcing teams back inside.”
Hammond will be a busy man again tomorrow as Ireland look to stay calm on and off the pitch.