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Activity and recovery cycles and skill involvements of successful and unsuccessful elite rugby league teams : A longitudinal analysis of evolutionary changes in National Rugby League match-play
Gabbett, Tim J. Hulin, Billy T.
Gabbett, Tim J.
Hulin, Billy T.
Author
Abstract
We investigated changes in activity and recovery cycles and skill involvements: (1) during National Rugby league (NRL) match-play from 2004 to 2014 and (2) among successful and unsuccessful teams over the same period. Teams were divided into 4 tiers according to final ladder position: (A) 1st–4th, (B) 5th–8th, (C) 9th–12th and (D) 13th–16th. Total, mean and maximum ball-in-play time decreased, while recovery time increased from 2004 to 2014. Offensive and defensive skill involvements changed differentially over time with moderate to large reductions in the number of play-the-balls, offloads and missed tackles, and moderate to large increases in the number of passes, tackles made and ineffective tackles. The gap between Tier A and Tier D decreased for mean activity time and the proportion of short (<45 s) ball-in-play periods. Conversely, the gap between Tier A and Tier D increased for skill involvements, with Tier A completing more play-the-balls, and Tier D performing a greater number of offloads, and total, missed and ineffective tackles. Our results demonstrate the decreasing ball-in-play demands of NRL competition over 11 seasons. However, our data also highlight the narrowing gap in ball-in-play demands, and increasing gap in skill involvements between the top tier and bottom tier teams.
Keywords
performance analysis, team sports, time-motion analysis
Date
2018
Type
Journal article
Journal
Journal of Sports Sciences
Book
Volume
36
Issue
2
Page Range
180-190
Article Number
ACU Department
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Controlled