Perform Better and University of Chester team up to support England Touch

Perform Better and staff from the University of Chester Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences have joined forces to support England Touch Men’s, Women’s and Mixed Open teams at the upcoming European Touch Championships in Jersey.

Perform Better have very generously provided enough Catapult GPS units on loan to collect data on all England open athletes performance for the duration for the four-day tournament. Three University of Chester staff will also join the England touring party in Jersey to assist with the data collection and performance monitoring.

Tim Osborne, High Performance Director said ‘we are thrilled at the chance to work with Perform Better and the University of Chester sports scientists.

‘This project is a very exciting opportunity to better understand game and tournament loads over a four-day international Touch event. We understand that this sort of study has not occurred anywhere outside of Australia and we have great hopes that it will continue to provide insights that will sustain England’s success.'

Cari Thorpe, Head of Medical Services for England Touch for the past 4 years, added 'We have looked at demands of the national and regional games previously, however, this was only a snap shot. This opportunity will provide a more detailed analysis of the women's, men's and mixed games, potentially giving us a greater insight into position specific demands as well as highlighting injury risk’.

England Touch would like to thank Alastair Yule and Rob Pacey of Perform Better along with Dr Craig Twist, Nick Dobbin and Jamie Highton of the University of Chester.