Raw

A film by Lumin Sports, produced by Henry Jones, shot by Henry Jones and Jack Shephard (November 2023)

The Great and the Good (plus your correspondent) gathered at Glenelg Football Club on 8 November to view an advance screening of this short, brilliantly produced, and exhilarating view of the 2023 finals campaign, viewed from within the inner sanctum.

Lumin ( https://luminsports.com/ ) is an expert qualitative data company, specialising in enhancing sporting analysis and performance. It’s flagship visualisation platform, “Arc, was launched in early 2019 as a way for technical and non-technical decision-makers in professional sporting teams to interpret complex athlete and team data to ultimately make better, more accurate and faster decisions.”

Lumin has been informing the Glenelg Football Club’s work for a little while now – its core competency is in high-quality data delivery. It is not a documentary company. However, its short piece, “Raw,” recently released on You Tube, outshines most of the documentary films washing though the internet, podcasts, and legacy broadcasting. It started life as an off-topic curio, a 10 minute focus on Matt Allen. Then the Tigers finished on top at the end of the minor round and so the story grew in the telling. The Lumin team had full access to the inner sanctum during the campaign, and so the film documents the tactics, strategy, analysis, psychology, camaraderie, media commitments, blood, sweat and tears, as the Bays drove for Premiership # 6.

All the key personnel are in view and the interviews are insightful. Just one example: High Performance Manager Tom Stevens explains that whereas a normal week’s regime will be about 21 kilometres, in the week before the GF it’s dialled-down to 16.5 (because there’s no game a week later). Prominent throughout of course is the Senior Coach, Darren Reeves, and we are reminded at the start by Head of Football, Paul Sandercock, how remarkable it is that he was only appointed less than a year ahead of Grand Final day. An envious supporter of another team commented on our post on the Grand Final thus: “What team starts the year with no coach and a Club in disarray and then takes all the toys…?”

Some of the language in the film is a bit ‘raw,’ but that’s footy. “Raw” is a little gem. Check it out on You Tube (and if you have a smart TV, it is even more impressive on a large screen).