COLLISION COURSE DR JODI RICHARDSON
N
SPORTS SCIENCE SPECIALIST
RL PLAYERS ARE SUPREME athletes – freaks of strength, endurance, agility and speed. New research suggests that NRL teams may not be adequately preparing these players, and also begs the question – are NYC players adequately conditioned to come into the NRL? The stop-start nature of the sport and the range of physical demands on players make the planning and implementation of training drills to meet game requirements a challenge. Better planning is only possible when better information becomes available. NRL and NYC games are 80 minutes but research published in June reveals that the time when the ball was continuously in play during an NRL game averaged 55 minutes. The same statistic for NYC was 50 minutes. On face value that may not seem much but it’s what’s going on during that time that sets the competitions apart. 43 l RUGBY LEAGUE WEEK
Author of the research, sport scientist at the Australian Catholic University and Australia’s foremost rugby league researcher, Dr Tim Gabbett, says the findings make NRL and NYC almost look like separate sports. He analysed 393 NRL games and 388 NYC games and compared time when the ball was in play with stoppages. Stoppages included scrums, tries, penalties, line drop-outs and video ref decisions. He found that what discriminates the physical demands of NRL and NYC are the number of repeated high-intensity physical efforts. That’s tackle after tackle after tackle. “NRL games have fewer short-duration ballin-play periods and a greater number of longer ball-in-play periods than NYC,” Gabbett says. “NRL players have to do back-to-back repeat efforts. They’ll make a tackle and another and another. NYC players, whether they are unwilling or unable we don’t really know, but it’s a major difference between those two levels. It’s possible that NYC players are being promoted to NRL before they’re ready.” Gabbett’s research, the first of its kind in rugby league, also revealed details of how long teams need to be able to sustain repeated highintensity efforts to be highly competitive.
On average, the ball is in play in an NRL game for about 80-second blocks but values like this in team sports can be misleading, especially when there are 781 games under scrutiny. It’s like reading a stat that tells you the average weight of a rugby league player is 100kg. When you look more closely at the numbers, it’s plain to see that some players can weigh as little as 70kg and others as much as 130kg. The average doesn’t show the variation. Further number crunching indicates that coaches need to be preparing their players for much longer stints of high-intensity play. “The longest average across any game is about six minutes but the longest passage of play I’ve come across (in NRL) is 11 minutes. The ‘take home point’ is, if you train for the average demands of 80 seconds, it’s highly likely you’re going to be underprepared for the worst-case scenario,” Gabbett explains. It’s the ability to be able to back up with repeated efforts that wins games. “If you compare the top four sides when they compete against each other, they keep the ball in play longer,” Gabbett says. “They have many more long duration periods of play and fewer short duration periods than the bottom four
teams. The best teams have a better ability to get in the grind.” Coaches and conditioning staff with access to current research in rugby league are best placed to ensure that players are trained as specifically to match demands as they can be. Cowboys coach Neil Henry has been combining what he has learned from Gabbett’s research with the club’s own data. “We certainly found value in Tim’s application of the study of repeated high-intensity efforts,” Henry says. “We found it very useful as an aid to our training and also to tie in with the data we’ve extracted through our GPS technology. We’ve also incorporated maximum aerobic speed training into our sessions, to train players above the levels the game presents so we really do tax the players.” NRL teams need to be replicating the ‘worstcase scenario’ of between six and 11-minute passages of high-intensity repeated efforts including sprinting and collision demands. For players to be adequately prepared and for the team to be competitive, this is essential. “Players need to be physically and mentally strong and mental toughness comes with working hard physically,” Gabbett says. RLW twitter.com/LeagueWeek
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
New research suggests our fledgling stars may not be getting adequate preparation for the demands of the NRL