GPS technology helping Darlington make changes

The most he had made for any game previously this season was four – when there was Covid in the camp on Boxing Day – and going into the Fylde fixture his side had not lost their previous two matches.

Two typical comments on social media were: “I’m fuming after arriving here and seeing this. This is going to be a cricket score,” and “wish I’d known the team before travelling. Obviously saving players for Saturday. Hopefully this tweet will come back to bite me!”

It did bite him because Darlington won 2-1.

Despite the wholesale changes, and despite the understandable apathy from some, Quakers stunned their hosts and Armstrong has since repeated the trick.

They came up trumps after making four changes against Chorley and then six on Tuesday at home to Southport.

Fundamentally, Armstrong feels able to make such personnel alterations as he has assembled a squad that gives him options across the team, offering opportunities to rest players, putting fresher legs into the starting XI.

But knowing when the right time is to rest a player has become simpler since investing in GPS technology to provide player performance metrics. Essentially, the small black vests worn underneath players’ shirts record how far they’ve ran and how quick they did it.

Such technology has been commonplace at the top level of the game for years, but now Quakers have followed suit.

Armstrong explained: “We can track the speed they’re running, their distances, heat maps, everything. It tells us what speeds players have run, where on the pitch most often they’ve run, how often they’ve walked, all sorts.

“We’ve had it for the last few games and there’s no hiding place with it – the stats are there.

“I’ve wanted it a long time and it’s great because it means I can sit down with the lads and go through things with them. It brings out a competitive nature in them because they see each other’s stats too.”

Winger Jarrett Rivers is known for his work ethic, something that was underlined in the Fylde data.

“We found out after that game that two of them, Jarrett Rivers and Alex Purver, did over 12km each,” said Armstrong.

“That’s phenomenal for non-league level.

“Hence why those two did not start the next game against Chorley because they’d never be able to repeat that performance on a Saturday after doing that on the Tuesday, you’re not going to have the same energy.

“But if I didn’t have those stats, Jazz and Purvs might’ve started on Saturday, and there would’ve been more chance of them getting injured.”

Quakers’ fitness and conditioning coach Mark Thistlethwaite is tasked with downloading the data and supplying it to Armstrong.

He explained: “I look at all the data and send it to Alun and we put it in the group chat for the players to see, so there’s a bit of competition there among the lads.

“Alun is experienced and tends to know when a player needs a rest, but we also have the figures in front of us now.

“The most important thing we use it for is recovery and injury prevention.

“We take into account total distance over a three-week period and training is included.

“If, for example, Jarrett’s average is 10k per week and in the fourth week he then does 16k, that would be too high. So we’d reel him in the next week otherwise he’d be at a higher risk of injury.

“We can see if the players are doing too little, at risk of injury, or doing too much. We can reign them in, so that means give them less training or we can increase it.”

Never change a winning team, so they say, but Darlington are guaranteed to make changes today when they face Boston United at Blackwell, with David Wheater one of those returning.

“It can back up what I say, and sometimes it might surprise me,” added Armstrong.

“It’s something else to make us more professional, we’re slowly but surely getting there. It’s not cheap, but it’s something I think is important to have as a club.

“We want to keep the club moving forward and having this will help the analysis sessions I want to have on Mondays next season.”