This study aimed to determine whether athletic mental energy played a mediating role between sports mental training and sports courage in rugby players. The study developed an original theoretical model, which was tested using the Sobel test. The sample consisted of 309 rugby players in the 15 men's, 7's women-men, U18 7's men's-women's rugby…

Rugby Sevens has been extensively investigated in elite athletes, but talented teenagers require more attention from sports development researchers. This study aimed to investigate a 16-week intervention of rugby training on physical performance in talented girls. Fifteen girls (14.00 ± 0.53 years, 156.27 ± 4.03 cm, 52.53 ± 5.67 kg) selected as…

This article focuses on the influence of early life experiences and socio-cultural context on coach learning in the sport of rugby league. It draws on the findings of a study that investigated the influence of cultural context on the development of elite-level rugby league coaches in England and Australia. The article focuses on the influence of…

The purpose of this study was to explore the manner in which Australian National Rugby League (NRL) referees developed their craft. Craftmanship represents an enduring, basic human impulse, related to the desire to do a job well for its own sake (Sennett, R. (2008). Prologue: Man as his own maker. In R. Sennett (Ed.), "The craftsman"…

This study investigated perceptions about the effectiveness of a student-led sports event. Participants from a student-led tag rugby league were surveyed about its perceived effectiveness. The sample consisted of 227 participants, most of whom were undergraduates (91%) across a wide variety of academic programs. The effectiveness of the league was…

Contemporarily Australian Indigenous peoples are portrayed by white Australians according to deficit understandings. As well as being inaccurate, this depiction, as part of a long-term civilising process, is an expression of 'fantasy-laden thinking' [Mennell, S., & Goudsblom, J. (1998). Introduction. In S. Mennell & J. Goudsblom (Eds.),…

Background: In team games situations, the ability to make fast and accurate decisions is crucial to performance. As such, effective decision making, characterised by the consistent and efficient ability to choose the right course of action at the right moment, is a key component of match performance in team sports such as rugby union. Previous…

Relative age effects (RAEs) are independent of specific cutoff dates that can vary from country to country. However, the consequences of changing the selection cutoff dates within a national sport organization are unknown. Further, the transition from international youth to senior representation is yet to be explored in rugby union. Thus, the aims…

Purpose: Adopting an ecological perspective, the study explored the context-strengths of three successful school-based TDEs in rugby league. Method: Utilizing a mixed methods approach, incorporating validated psychometric questionnaires (N = 118) and semi-structured interviews, various stakeholder perspectives (N = 30; i.e., current/past students…

There has been a growing trend of elite athletes being fast-tracked into post-athletic high-performance coaching roles in association football and rugby union in England and Wales. This has been facilitated by an increase in bespoke and condensed formal coach education courses that are designed to accelerate current and/or former elite athletes in…

Purpose: The aim of the study was to analyze the accuracy of impedance cardiography (ICG) for hemodynamic assessment in wheelchair rugby players during rest and exercise. Method: The study included 21 players (mean age 33.0 ± 5.4, 86% male) with posttraumatic tetraplegia. ECG, echocardiography, and gas exchange analysis during rest and exercise…

Annual age cohort groupings promote relative age effects (RAEs), which often, inadvertently, create participation and attainment biases between relatively older and younger players within the same age cohort. In a globally evolving sport, women's rugby team selection practices may potentially bypass qualified players as a result of maturational…

Problem-based learning along with other game and player-centred approaches have been promoted as valuable alternatives to more traditional, skill-based, directive, and leader-centric pedagogical approaches. However, as research has shown, they are not unproblematic or straightforward to apply. Heeding to calls for more empirical studies of…

Background: Youth rugby players represent 45.2% (N?=?69,472) of the Irish rugby union playing population. The risk and consequences of concussion injury are of particular concern in these young athletes, but limited epidemiological data exists. This study investigated annual and lifetime prevalence of concussion in an Irish schoolboy rugby union…

Internships are considered high-impact practices in higher education. However, to date, such programs to prepare kinesiology students for careers as strength and conditioning (S&C) coaches have rarely been studied for impact. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively assess interns' perceived benefits of interning as S&C coaches. Five…