The influence of age, playing position, anthropometry and fitness on career attainment outcomes in rugby league

Till, Kevin; Cobley, Stephen; Morley, David; O’Hara, John; Chapman, Chris; Cooke, Carlton

doi:10.1080/02640414.2015.1105380

Cited by 56 publications

(80 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…In addition, when comparing height and body mass of 13- to 15-year-olds against future career attainment (i.e. whether players achieved amateur, academy or professional status in adulthood), no differences were found between career attainment levels [14, 36], and, in the under 14 age category, future professionals (61.7 ± 9.2 kg) had a significantly lower body mass than amateur (71.1 ± 11.8 kg) and academy (70.0 ± 10.7 kg) players [36]. These differences may be supported by the fact that no relationships were observed between height and body mass and tackling ability in junior players despite contrasting findings in senior cohorts [37].…”

Section: Anthropometric Qualitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…13.7 ± 1.6 vs. 12.6 ± 1.1 kg), whereas large differences were found in total fat (19.3 ± 1.6 vs. 15.4 ± 1.1 kg), lean mass, and bone mineral content (BMC), whereby these differences were particularly favourable in the legs of professional-level forwards [30]. When considering future career attainment level, future professionals (33.4 ± 9.8 mm) had reduced skinfolds compared with amateur players (41.6 ± 18.2 mm) in the under 13–15 age categories [14, 36]. However, reduced skinfolds did not differentiate between future professional and academy players in the under 17–19 age categories (e.g.…”

Section: Body Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…agility 5-0-5; under 17, 2.36 ± 0.08 vs. 2.68 ± 0.08 s) [26], national players were faster than regional players (see Table 2) [13], starters were quicker than non-starters (2.31 ± 0.13 vs. 2.43 ± 0.15 s) [25] and future professionals had greater change-of-direction ability than future amateurs (e.g. 2.42 ± 0.12 vs. 2.52 ± 0.16 s) [14, 36]. This suggests advanced change-of-direction speed contributes to a greater playing standard and future career attainment level.…”

Section: Change-of-direction Speedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Till et al [17] suggested that greater change-of-direction speed in backs may be due to the greater body mass and body fat in props, which may increase the eccentric braking capabilities to halt momentum in one direction before immediately accelerating in a new direction [49]. This is a potential explanation why props have lower career attainment success in rugby league [36] (i.e. reduced ability to change direction lessens their ability to meet the increasing movement demands associated with progressing levels of match-play).…”

Section: Change-of-direction Speedmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Anthropometric and Physical Qualities of Elite Male Youth Rugby League Players

2017

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Rugby league is a collision team sport played at junior and senior levels worldwide, whereby players require highly developed anthropometric and physical qualities (i.e. speed, change-of-direction speed, aerobic capacity, muscular strength and power). Within junior levels, professional clubs and national governing bodies implement talent identification and development programmes to support the development of youth (i.e. 13–20 years) rugby league players into professional athletes. This review presents and critically appraises the anthropometric and physical qualities of elite male youth rugby league players aged between 13 and 20 years, by age category, playing standard and playing position. Height, body mass, body composition, linear speed, change-of-direction speed, aerobic capacity, muscular strength and power characteristics are presented and demonstrate that qualities develop with age and differentiate between playing standard and playing position. This highlights the importance of anthropometric and physical qualities for the identification and development of youth rugby league players. However, factors such as maturity status, variability in development, longitudinal monitoring and career attainment should be considered to help understand, identify and develop the physical qualities of youth players. Further extensive research is required into the anthropometric and physical qualities of youth rugby league players, specifically considering national standardised testing batteries, links between physical qualities and match performance, together with intervention studies, to inform the physical development of youth rugby league players for talent identification and development purposes.

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Section: Anthropometric Qualitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Body Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Change-of-direction Speedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Change-of-direction Speedmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Anthropometric and Physical Qualities of Elite Male Youth Rugby League Players

2017

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“…Ranking within talent identification, can also provide an objective assessment of the performance of young athletes relative to their peers, something that can be helpful when making important decisions about career progression [1, 2]. While ranking is a relatively straightforward task in sports that employ traditional leagues in which all the teams play each other (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel application of PageRank and user preference algorithms for assessing the relative performance of track athletes in competition

et al. 2017

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Ranking enables coaches, sporting authorities, and pundits to determine the relative performance of individual athletes and teams in comparison to their peers. While ranking is relatively straightforward in sports that employ traditional leagues, it is more difficult in sports where competition is fragmented (e.g. athletics, boxing, etc.), with not all competitors competing against each other. In such situations, complex points systems are often employed to rank athletes. However, these systems have the inherent weakness that they frequently rely on subjective assessments in order to gauge the calibre of the competitors involved. Here we show how two Internet derived algorithms, the PageRank (PR) and user preference (UP) algorithms, when utilised with a simple ‘who beat who’ matrix, can be used to accurately rank track athletes, avoiding the need for subjective assessment. We applied the PR and UP algorithms to the 2015 IAAF Diamond League men’s 100m competition and compared their performance with the Keener, Colley and Massey ranking algorithms. The top five places computed by the PR and UP algorithms, and the Diamond League ‘2016’ points system were all identical, with the Kendall’s tau distance between the PR standings and ‘2016’ points system standings being just 15, indicating that only 5.9% of pairs differed in their order between these two lists. By comparison, the UP and ‘2016’ standings displayed a less strong relationship, with a tau distance of 95, indicating that 37.6% of the pairs differed in their order. When compared with the standings produced using the Keener, Colley and Massey algorithms, the PR standings appeared to be closest to the Keener standings (tau distance = 67, 26.5% pair order disagreement), whereas the UP standings were more similar to the Colley and Massey standings, with the tau distances between these ranking lists being only 48 (19.0% pair order disagreement) and 59 (23.3% pair order disagreement) respectively. In particular, the UP algorithm ranked ‘one-off’ victors more highly than the PR algorithm, suggesting that the UP algorithm captures alternative characteristics to the PR algorithm, which may more suitable for predicting future performance in say knockout tournaments, rather than for use in competitions such as the Diamond League. As such, these Internet derived algorithms appear to have considerable potential for objectively assessing the relative performance of track athletes, without the need for complicated points equivalence tables. Importantly, because both algorithms utilise a ‘who beat who’ model, they automatically adjust for the strength of the competition, thus avoiding the need for subjective decision making.

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