'The amount of information that's being collected is insane' - Irish rugby following the data to protect big stars

The first weekend of the year, and a rare winter weekend when professional men's rugby in Ireland takes a few days off.

The Christmas schedule was kinder on the four provinces this season.

With Christmas and New Year’s Day both falling midweek, the traditional 'Winterpros’ fell neatly into their usual Friday and Saturday slots. Very little disruption to the calendar, with a late Christmas present of a weekend of rest in the BKT United Rugby Championship.

With the Christmas URC games falling in the middle of a palindromic schedule of Champions Cup and Test matches stretching from November to mid-March, the regular rotation of teams and resting of top stars during these games in December has been a sticking point for a number of years.

Those decisions wouldn't have been made on a whim, with an extensive database of minutes, training-load and injury history available to teams and coaches, which then get analysed and implemented by the IRFU and the four provinces.

The company that provides that data is Kitman Labs.

"You need to figure out how to ensure that the athlete is managed through that period," says Stephen Smith, founder and CEO of Kitman Labs, who believes that the draining 11-month rugby seasons we are now seeing will remain.

"These fixture congestions, schedule congestions, the length of the global calendar, I don't think that's going to change because the sport needs the money, the athletes need the money, the professionalism demands that.

"So I think what leagues and governing bodies are going to have to do is get really smart about how they protect their athletes through that. And I think we've seen that."

These days, Kitman Labs is a world leader in sports science, with major deals with the IRFU, as well as England,