A Review of the Essential Visual Skills Required for Rugby: Beyond 20-20 Optometry

Abstract

Background: Vision is one of the most important qualities required of athletes. It provides players with an ability to perform sport-related drills, as well as applying decision-making skills. In order to accurately measure the visual ability of athletes, it is important to first identify the variety of visual skills involved in the sport, in this case rugby. Objectives: The objectives of the review novelty are to identify the most important visual skills for rugby. To create a referencing point for future studies to be able to add additional visual skills essential to rugby players. Methods: An electronic search was conducted to assess the scientific literature relating to the visual skills required for rugby. Only peer-reviewed articles written in English were included in the search. Data on the relationship with match performance, the problem definition or purpose of the study, and the inclusion of a theoretical definition of tactical behavior were extracted. Discussion: The most important visual skills in rugby are: Visual acuity, Eye tracking, Eye focusing, Depth perception, Hand-eye coordination, Fixation, Fusion flexibility, Visual adjustability and Colour flexibility. Rugby players must pay attention to their teammates' positions, understand the opponent's actions and tactics, handle the ball, analyze the current situation, and predict what will happen.

Differences in visio-spatial intelligence between non-athletes and netball players

“…A Hart chart was used to assess an eye's capacity to locate and identify an item at a certain distance, as well as its position, orientation, and refractive errors (26,27). The test has a reliability of 0.7, making it a legitimate and reliable test to use (18,28). On a wall three meters away, the Hart Chart was positioned at each participant's head height.…”

“…A second chart had to be held by the participants at arm's length using their dominant hand, the paper was held perpendicular to the body at shoulder height in the frontal plane and their hands had to be stationary. The participants were then requested to read aloud the first letter of the first line of the chart from a three meters distance, and they were then told to read aloud the first letter of the chart from an arm's length away (28,29). After 30 s, the participants were instructed to continue in this manner, at which point their errors and final score were recorded (i.e., how many letters were read correctly).…”

“…The participant's number of errors was deducted from the final score to arrive at the final score. To verify that letters cannot be memorized, various charts were utilized (26,28). A five-minute break was taken between each session, and the highest score from the two trials was recorded and applied in the analysis.…”

“…A saccadic eye movement chart was used to measure how quickly the participant's eyes travel when moving the fovea to a new spot in the visual surroundings (1,30,31). This test has a reliability of 0.703 (28). On both sides of the page, this chart included movable letters that ran vertically downward.…”

“…On both sides of the page, this chart included movable letters that ran vertically downward. To prevent letters from being memorized, various charts were utilized (28). The subject stood 3 m away from two saccadic eye movement charts that were mounted on a wall and spaced apart by 1 m. The subject was then required to quickly turn to the right chart and read aloud the first letter on the lateral side before doing the same on the left chart's lateral side.…”