Union Football Research Articles

Impact of the Two-Handed Rugby Ball Carry on Change of Direction Speed and Reactive Agility: Implications for Sport Specific Testing

The primary aim of this research was to determine if the two-handed ball carry impacted on time to completion of a change of direction speed (CODS) test and a reactive agility test (RAT). Fourteen males, registered in the local rugby league/union or touch football competitions, completed an L-Run (CODS) and a modified RAT while running either with (mean L-Run = 5.69 ±0.14; mean RAT stepping left = 3.50 ±0.18; stepping right = 3.46 ±0.14) or without (mean L-Run = 5.60 ±0.16; mean RAT stepping left = 3.43 ±0.15; stepping right = 3.44 ±0.16) a rugby ball to determine if the two-handed ball carry produced significant (p < 0.05) differences in test time. Statistical analysis showed that the two-handed ball carry produced significantly slower times in both the CODS test (p = < 0.002) and RAT (p = 0.022). It is suggested that sports, such as rugby league, rugby union, and touch football that require participants to run in possession of a ball while displaying different forms of agility, should consider implementing testing methods that incorporate the two-handed ball carry to more specifically reflect what transpires during play.

Sports and competition law: the case of the salary cap in New Zealand rugby union

The legal environment of professional sports in Europe has been recently complemented by regulations adopted by sports federations and professional leagues aiming at preserving fairness in sports competitions and/or the economic viability of this sector (like the salary cap put in place in French professional rugby union from the 2010–2011 season and the UEFA’s financial fair play regulations). No formal decisions have been taken so far by the European Commission and the French competition authority on the compliance of salary cap regulations or other similar regulation tools with competition rules. Given this context, the decisions of the New Zealand’s competition authority (“Commerce Commission”) dealt with in this article are interesting as they relate to the salary cap put in place as from 2006 by the New Zealand Rugby Football Union in the domestic inter-provincial rugby competition. More particularly, the Commerce Commission’s first decision, dated 2 June 2006, is highly interesting as the Commerce Commission carried out an in-depth legal and economic analysis to authorise the entry into effect of the salary cap pursuant to competition rules applicable in New Zealand. While these decisions should be analysed under the specific sporting and legal background of New Zealand, it is interesting to investigate what could be their practical and legal impact in Europe.

Anthropometric Profile and Body Composition of Irish Adolescent Rugby Union Players Aged 16–18

The literature suggests that one of the key determinants of success at rugby union international competitions is the anthropometric profile of players. The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) long-term player development (LTPD) model is a framework designed to guide the development of the tactical, physical, and psychological domains of sporting participation. In Ireland, the Train-to-Train stage of the IRFU model is a critical stage, whereby the next developmental progression would include the transition of players into professional academies. To date, no previously published studies have examined the anthropometric profile of Irish Schools' rugby union players at the Train-to-Train stage of the IRFU model. The anthropometric profile of 136 male adolescent rugby union players at the Train-to-Train stage of the IRFU model was assessed using total-body dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. Significant differences in height, body mass, body fat percentage, fat mass, lean mass, and fat-free mass were observed between players assigned to the forward and back units, and for specific position categorizations within each unit. Direct logistic regression revealed that body mass was a statistically significant (p < 0.01) predictor of unit position classification, with an odds ratio of 2.35, indicating that the players with a higher body mass were twice as likely to be classified as forwards. The results of this study indicate that at the Train-to-Train stage of the IRFU model, forward and back units have distinctly different anthropometric profiles. Furthermore, anthropometric differentiation also exists within specific position categorizations within each of these playing units. Thus, anthropometric profiling should be carried out on a systematic and periodic basis, because this will allow for the evaluation of the effectiveness of the implementation strategies of the IRFU model on a national basis.

‘There Are Some Daft People Out There!’: exploring female sport and media fandoms

Female sports fans have been largely marginalized in academic research, but this article makes one contribution towards changing this relative invisibility. Drawing on a ‘grounded theory’ approach, 85 semi-structured interviews were conducted with female football (soccer) and rugby union fans in the English city of Leicester. This article explores how these women position themselves in relation to stereotypes about female media/soap opera fans. Whilst some sports fans were keen to reaffirm hierarchies between sports and media fandoms, others emphasized the extant similarities between these different types of fandom, illustrating the heterogeneity of women's sporting experiences and the range of their interpretations of fandom. My findings concur with Schimmel et al.'s assertion (Schimmel et al. ‘Keep Your Fans to Yourself’, 593) that there is a need for greater ‘cross-fertilization’ between sports and media fandoms. This could help to prompt a move away from gendered hierarchies in research and move towards putting women's experiences as sports fans on the research agenda.

Reduced prevalence of smoking in masters football codes (rugby union, soccer and touch football)

Reduced prevalence of smoking in masters football codes (rugby union, soccer and touch football)

“The Love of My Life”

Academic research has typically focused upon the importance of sports fandom for men, and there is also a lack of comparative work which examines fans of different sports. This article aims to address this omission by exploring the meaning and importance of sports fandom for women. Drawing on a “grounded theory” approach, 85 semi-structured interviews were conducted with female fans of men’s football (soccer) and rugby union in England. Building upon Giulianotti’s (2002) work, I develop a preliminary model of female fandom. I examine two female fan “types” (“hot’ and “cool” fans), and explore two different kinds of gender performance (“masculine” femininities and “feminine” femininities) which helped to connote these. My findings demonstrate the need to consider the range and diversity of women’s supporter styles.

The need to tackle concussion in Australian football codes

Postmortem evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in the brains of American National Football League players who suffered concussions while playing have intensified concerns about the risks of concussion in sport.1 Concussions are frequently sustained by amateur and professional players of Australia’s three most popular football codes (Australian football, rugby league, and rugby union) and, to a lesser extent, other contact sports such as soccer. This raises major concerns about possible long-term neurological damage,2-4 cognitive impairment and mental health problems5 in players of these sports.

Corporate Governance and Earnings Management in the European Football Industry

The scope of this paper is to analyze the impact of corporate governance quality (namely board size, board independence, managerial ownership, institutional ownership and CEO duality) on the earnings management behaviour of European Union's football clubs over the period 2006–2009. Empirical results documented that corporate governance quality mitigates aggressive earnings manipulation (income smoothing, accrual manipulation and reporting small positive income) by football managers and specifically clubs with increased board independence, managerial ownership and institutional ownership and small board size are associated with high quality financial reporting through the deterioration of earnings management behaviour. These findings dictate the necessity of sound corporate governance principles to protect the interests of shareholders and various stakeholders, and prevent the expropriation of wealth by managers and maximize the clubs’ economic results and social return. The empirical findings are robust to several sensitivity tests concerning the functioning form of the models and the measures of earnings management.

An innovative hybrid natural–artificial sports pitch construction system

Third-generation artificial-turf pitches are often criticized because of their high abrasiveness when athletes fall on the surface, the high temperatures recorded in summer periods, and their unpleasant rubber odour. On the other hand, natural-turf pitches are not able to withstand the high play volumes currently associated with modern high-profile and community sports pitches. Hybrid systems with a varying presence of artificial fibres and reinforcements have long been tested and installed, without providing a definitive answer to the above-mentioned problems of natural turf. The aim of this study was to evaluate the playing characteristics and the wear resistance of a newly patented hybrid natural-artificial sports pitch construction system after rugby and football play for 2 months and 5 months. This hybrid system consists of a modified third-generation artificial grass with organic infill, on which natural grass was allowed to grow. A 11300 m2 experimental pitch was constructed in Pisa (Italy) in the summer of 2007 and tested during 2007–2008 following football and rugby union play for an average of 8–9 h/week. The hybrid pitch showed a total absence of rubber odour, summer temperatures similar to those of natural-turf pitches, wear resistance superior to that of natural-turf pitches, abrasiveness similar to that of natural-turf pitches, and good infill particle size stability. Most playing-quality parameters fell within both the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Recommended 2-Star Standard requirements for artificial turf and generally accepted playing-quality parameters for natural turf. Since then more pitches as described herein have been constructed and witnessed international match play, while FIFA has classified the system as a reinforced natural-grass pitch.

Inhabiting different bodies over time: narrative and pedagogical challenges

Over the life course our ‘real’ bodies change and we come to inhabit them and know them and ourselves in different ways. Of course, just how we learn to inhabit different bodies in the flesh and give meaning to them over time is a complex relational process that has consequences for our being in the world. Central to this process is the role of narrative. Culture provides people with a menu of narrative forms and content from which they selectively draw in an effort to line up their lived experience with the kinds of stories available to organize and express it to themselves and others. This narrative menu operates as a key resource in linking the sensorial materiality of the body to wider social structures that shape the meaning making process at the individual and group level. As such, narrative resources can be both enabling and constraining when the individual confronts bodily change. In this article, we explore the ways in which narratives as an embodied act infuse the flesh and help give meaning to dramatic bodily change for a small group of amateur sportsmen who have suffered catastrophic spinal cord injuries and become disabled through playing the sport of rugby football union. We close by offering some reflections on the dilemmas that bodily change instigates for those who operate with limited narrative resources and the pedagogical challenges this provides for those involved with them.

Coding sports injury surveillance data: has version 10 of the Orchard Sports Injury Classification System improved the classification of sports medicine diagnoses?

Objectives:To compare versions 8 and 10 of the Orchard Sports Injury Classification System (OSICS) to determine whether the revised version of OSICS has improved its use in a sports medicine...

Cycle of Conflict: A Decade of Strife in English Professional Rugby

Rugby union was the last major international sport to embrace open professionalism. In the years leading up to the abandonment of the amateur principle by the sport's world governing body, the (English) Rugby Football Union's rearguard action on both domestic and international fronts left it ill-equipped to cope with the realities of a new world order. This discussion will provide a brief review of the circumstances that led to rugby union's change of status; examine in detail how and why conflicts that emerged in the aftermath of professionalism were particular to the English experience; analyse events that have sustained these conflicts over a decade; and offer an assessment of future prospects for stability in the domestic game.

Preparticipation medical evaluation in professional sport in the UK: theory or practice?

Objective:To determine the level of pre-employment, pre-season, and post-injury medical evaluation of players undertaken within UK professional team sports.Design:A postal, whole population survey.Setting:Elite professional sports teams in England.Population:Six groups comprising...

Battle Lines on Three Fronts: The RFU and the Lost War Against Professionalism

As rugby union's development in the late twentieth century brought it to resemble other professional team sports, The Rugby Football Union remained steadfast in retaining the game's officially amateur status. This essay attempts to identify a critical period in which a combination of events set in motion forces for change the authorities would be unable to contain. This turning point in the sport's recent history caused the RFU to defend its increasingly-isolated position against three separate, though related, pressure groups: the senior English clubs, the national team and the progressive elements on the International Rugby Board. Keywords: Sport; rugby union; professionalism;amateurism; RFU

ENGLISH RUGBY UNION AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR

The idea that war was a football match writ large was commonly expressed in Britain during the First World War. This article looks at the attitudes and actions of the English Rugby Football Union and its supporters before, during, and after the First World War to examine how such beliefs were utilized by sports organizations and the impact they had on the military and on society as a whole. Rugby union football was viewed both by its supporters and general observers alike as the most enthusiastic and committed sporting supporter of the war effort; the article explores rugby's overtly ideological stance as a means of shedding light on broader discussions about the cultural impact of the war, such as in the works of Paul Fussell and Jay Winter, and about the continued survival of traditional and Edwardian ideas of patriotism among the English middle classes in the immediate post-war period.

Sport, Spinal Cord Injury, Embodied Masculinities, and the Dilemmas of Narrative Identity

This article focuses on the narrative identity dilemmas of four men who have experienced spinal cord injury (SCI) through playing rugby football union and now define themselves as disabled. The biographical data illustrate how body-self relationships moved from an absent presence in the lives of these men to something that was other, problematic, and alien. This transformation instigated anxieties concerning the combined loss of specific masculine and athletic identities that were formerly at the apex of the participants' identity hierarchy. In such circumstances, the desire for a restored self is highlighted, as are the limited narrative resources that frame this coping strategy. Suggestions for how this situation might be changed are then offered.

Activity analysis of English premiership rugby football union refereeing

Little is known about the physiological demands placed on officials during sporting activities. The purpose of this study was to ascertain the movement activities of referees during English Premiership rugby football union matches, and to determine the frequency and duration of these activities. Nine referees who were ranked in the top 20 referees in England were videotaped during a total of 19 matches. During playback of the videotapes, a single observer coded the referees' activities into one of six distinct categories (standing, walking forwards, walking backwards, jogging, running and sprinting) using a computerized video editing system (Observer Video-Pro). The referees were timed over a 20 m distance for the modes of locomotory activity, and the average velocity of the referee for each activity was used to calculate the total distance covered in each mode of activity during matches. The total distance covered during a match was (χ ± SD) 8581 ± 668 m. The mean percentage of total playing time spent in each activity was: standing still, 37.0 ± 11.0%; walking forward, 29.5 ± 7.2%; walking backward, 9.9 ± 3.2%; jogging, 12.8 ± 3.2%; running, 9.8 ± 2.3%; and sprinting, 1.0 ± 0.4%. There were a total of 672 transitions between modes of activity during a match. The results of this study suggest that refereeing top English rugby football union matches is physically demanding. Although the major physiological load is placed on the oxygen transport system, frequent sprint bouts and the associated requirements for acceleration and deceleration impose additional metabolic demands on referees. This information may be used in the design of physical training programmes to optimize performance in referees.

The nature and circumstances of tackle injuries in rugby union

This study describes the nature and circumstances of injury occurring in rugby union tackles (33% of 569 injury events) using data from the Rugby Injury and Performance Project (RIPP) and provides supplementary information on the nature of tackles involving injury from analysis of videotape of tackle injury events. The most common tackle injuries in the RIPP data were sprains/strains (41%) followed by haematomas/bruising (26%). The most frequently injured body sites were the head/neck/face (22%) and the knee (17%). The ball carrier and tackler were injured in tackles in similar proportions in both RIPP and New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU) video tackle incidents. Both players were most often in motion in the tackle at the time of injury with approximately 70% of injuries occurring when the injured player was running or diving/falling to the ground. Tackle injury was most often caused by impact with another player rather than impact with the ground. The use of protective padding may reduce the risk of impact injury. The majority of tackle injuries were associated with stopping tackles to the trunk which were from the front (63%), rather than from the side or behind. Thus consideration should be given to coaching strategies or to rule changes which reduce the likelihood or prohibit front-on tackles.

‘The work and play principle’: the professional regulations of the northern rugby football union, 1898–1905

‘The work and play principle’: the professional regulations of the northern rugby football union, 1898–1905

Computerized notation analysis in field games

Abstract Notation analysis can enhance the coaching process, and can provide information for virtually all decisions made with respect to long term and short term strategies, training, selection and scouting for talent. This applies to analysis of movement, actions and skills of individuals and teams. Notation systems in sport developed rapidly from racket games to team sports. Initially all systems were manual. The development and growth in power and sophistication, together with a decrease in cost, of the micro-computer in the early 1980s has enabled sports analysts to use this tool to simplify data handling. Far greater amounts of data can now be handled, processed and analysed in a fraction of the time taken previously. Computerized systems, for analysing team games, from Canada and Britain are described. Applications to association football, hockey, Rugby Union and American football have provided insights into successful patterns of play in these games. Recent work, in both these countries, gives a c...