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Reactive agility of rugby league players

Article  in  Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport · January 2008

DOI: 10.1016/j.jsams.2007.08.011 · Source: PubMed

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Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport (2009) 12, 212—214

SHORT REPORT

Reactive agility of rugby league players

Tim Gabbett a,∗, Dean Benton b

a Queensland Academy of Sport, Australia

b Brisbane Broncos Rugby League Club, Australia

Received 24 July 2007 ; received in revised form 16 August 2007; accepted 18 August 2007

KEYWORDS Summary While studies have investigated change of direction speed in rugby
Anticipation; league players, no study has investigated the reactive agility of these athletes.
Decision-making; The purpose of this study was to investigate the reactive agility of rugby league
Speed; players, to determine if this quality discriminated higher and lesser skilled players.
Agility; Twenty-four elite (mean ± S.D. age, 24.5 ± 4.2 years) and 42 sub-elite (23.6 ± 5.3
Change of direction years) rugby league players completed a game-specific test of reactive agility. Elite
players had better response accuracy (93.2 ± 1.9% vs. 85.5 ± 2.5%; p < 0.05, effect
speed
size = 0.58) and faster decision (89.5 ± 5.8 ms vs. 111.5 ± 6.4 ms; p < 0.05, effect
size = 0.62) and movement times (2.35 ± 0.03 s vs. 2.56 ± 0.03 s; p < 0.05, effect
size = 1.39) on the reactive agility test than sub-elite players. The reactive agility test
was able to distinguish four distinct classifications. Specifically, players were classi-
fied as requiring either (1) decision-making and change of direction speed training
to further consolidate good physical and perceptual abilities, (2) decision-making
training to develop below average perceptual abilities, (3) change of direction
speed training to develop below average physical attributes or (4) a combination
of decision-making and change of direction speed training to develop below average
physical and perceptual abilities. The results of this study demonstrate that a test
of reactive agility discriminates higher and lesser skilled rugby league players. In
addition, these findings highlight the important contribution of perceptual skill to
agility in rugby league players.
© 2007 Sports Medicine Australia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction change of direction speed tests that rely on pre-

Given the importance of agility to rugby league
players,1 several investigators have assessed this
quality using a wide range of performance tests
(e.g. ‘L’ run and 505 test).2,3 However, a limi-
tation of these tests is that they are all simple
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: tim.gabbett@srq.qld.gov.au (T. Gabbett).
planned movements. Although most practitioners
would classify agility as any movement involving
rapid change(s) of direction, agility has recently
been defined as a rapid change of direction in
response to a sport-specific stimulus.4 While the
majority of agility research has been devoted
to pre-planned change of direction speed tests,
investigators have recently begun to study the per-
ceptual components of agility.5,6 In this respect,

1440-2440/$ — see front matter © 2007 Sports Medicine Australia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jsams.2007.08.011
Reactive agility in rugby league
the ability of team sport athletes to ‘read and
react’ to a game-specific stimulus has been tested.
Sheppard et al.5 demonstrated that a test of reac-
tive agility was able to successfully discriminate
higher and lesser skilled Australian football play-
ers, where pre-planned change of direction speed
tests did not. Farrow et al.6 reported similar results
for netball players. Given the important contribu-
tion reactive agility tests have made to other team
sports, it is likely that a test of reactive agility could
significantly advance the understanding of agility in
rugby league.
While investigators have studied speed and
change of direction speed in rugby league play-
ers, no study has investigated the reactive agility
of these athletes. With this in mind, the purpose of
this study was to investigate the reactive agility of
rugby league players, to determine if this quality
discriminated higher and lesser skilled players.
Methods
Twenty-four elite (mean ± S.D. age, 24.5 ± 4.2
years) and 42 sub-elite (23.6 ± 5.3 years) rugby
league players participated in this study. Elite play-
ers were members of a National Rugby League
club while sub-elite players were registered with
a recreational rugby league club.
The reactive agility test has been described in
detail elsewhere.5 The player began on a marked
line with timing gates placed 5 m to the left and
right and 2 m forward of the start line.
The investigator stood opposite, and facing, the
player. The investigator stood behind a set of timing
lights. Each test trial involved the investigator initi-
ating movement, and thereby beginning the timing.
The player reacted to the movements of the inves-
tigator by moving forward, then to the left or right
in response to, and in the same direction as, the left
or right movement of the investigator. The timing
stopped when the player triggered the timing beam
on either side.
The investigator displayed one of four possible
scenarios to the player. The four possible scenar-
ios all involved steps of approximately 1.5 m, and
were presented in a random order that was dif-
Table 1 Reactive agility of elite and sub-elite rugby league players
Reactive agility Elite
Movement time (s) 2.35 (2.30—2.40)*
Decision time (ms) 89.5 (78.2—100.8)*
Response accuracy (%) 93.2 (89.5—96.8)*
Data are mean (and 95% confidence intervals).
* Denotes significant differences (p < 0.05) between groups.
213
ferent for each player.5 The test protocol involved
randomised presentation of four different cues, for
a total of eight trials (i.e. two trials on each of
the four different cues). These cues created varying
demands on the participants (as in a game setting).
The participants sprinted forward prior to any
change of direction, in reaction to the forward
movement of the investigator. The participant was
instructed to recognise the cues as soon as possi-
ble, and react by changing direction and sprinting
through the gates on the left or right in response.
The participants were instructed to emphasise
decision-making accuracy and speed of movement.
A high-speed video camera (HSC-200 PM, Peak
Performance Technologies, Inc.) interfaced with
a video recorder (Panasonic AG-5700) was posi-
tioned 5 m behind the player in order to record the
player’s change of movement direction relative to
the investigator. Video was sampled at 200 Hz so
that the number of frames between the investiga-
tor’s and the player’s movement initiation enabled
the player’s decision-making time to be recorded to
within ±5 ms for each trial.
Movement time was defined as the total time
taken to complete the test, from the moment the
investigator initiated the test and began the tim-
ing, to the moment the player triggered the timing
beam on either side of the investigator. Decision
time was defined as the time difference between
the first definitive foot contact initiating the move-
ment of the investigator in the final direction he
moved his body, and the first definitive foot con-
tact initiating the response of the player. Response
accuracy was expressed in terms of whether the
player moved to the correct finish gate relative to
the movement of the investigator.
Differences in performances between elite and
sub-elite players were compared using an indepen-
dent t-test.
Results
Significant differences (p < 0.05) were detected
between elite and sub-elite players for response
accuracy, decision and movement times on the
reactive agility test (Table 1).
Sub-elite Effect size
2.56 (2.51—2.61) 1.39
111.5 (99.0—124.0) 0.62
85.5 (80.6—90.5) 0.58
 214
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to investigate the
reactive agility of rugby league players, to deter-
mine if this quality discriminated higher and lesser
skilled players. The results of this study demon-
strate that decision and movement times on the
reactive agility test were faster in higher skilled
players, without compromising response accuracy.
The finding of superior anticipatory skill in the elite
players of the present study suggests that these
players had a greater ability to extract relevant
information earlier in the visual display, by identify-
ing relevant postural cues presented by the tester,
and disregarding irrelevant sources of information.6
These findings demonstrate the practical utility of
the reactive agility test for assessing the perceptual
components of agility in rugby league players.
The inclusion of decision time and response accu-
racy information using high-speed video footage
provides additional insight into the anticipatory
strengths and weaknesses of rugby league play-
ers. The analysis of the high-speed video footage
allows for a delineation of the performance com-
ponents of the reactive agility test, by determining
whether the test was limited by decision time or
movement speed. While the study by Sheppard et
al.5 provided important information on the reactive
agility of Australian football players, it did not mea-
sure decision time or response accuracy of players.
Consequently, their results are likely to be heav-
ily influenced by the movement speed of athletes.
Indeed, in the present study, if movement time
alone was used to classify reactive agility, some
players would be incorrectly classified as having
superior anticipatory skill.
It should be noted that a speed-accuracy trade-
off exists in the majority of players, so that
reductions in decision time (i.e. faster decision-
making ability) result in reductions in response
accuracy. While the instructions to emphasise
decision-making accuracy and speed of movement
were identical to those recommended by previ-
ous authors,5 it is possible that this instructional
set did contribute to the speed-accuracy trade-off
observed in the present study. It is possible that
requesting players to ‘react to the tester as you
would in a game situation by moving as quickly
as possible to intercept the tester’ may provide
more relevant instructions to minimise the speed-
accuracy trade-off.
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T. Gabbett, D. Benton
Among a squad of elite and sub-elite rugby
league players, the reactive agility test was able
to distinguish four distinct classifications. Specif-
ically, players were classified as requiring either
(1) decision-making and change of direction speed
training to further consolidate good physical and
perceptual abilities, (2) decision-making training
to develop below average perceptual abilities, (3)
change of direction speed training to develop below
average physical attributes or (4) a combination
of decision-making and change of direction speed
training to develop below average physical and per-
ceptual abilities.
While this study assessed the relatively recent
concept of reactive agility in rugby league play-
ers, this quality has been shown to be relevant to
a wide range of team sport athletes.5,6 In combi-
nation with traditional change of direction speed
tests, coaches may use these results to objectively
determine the individual strengths and weaknesses
of players, so that the most appropriate agility
training stimulus (i.e. either pre-planned change
of direction movements, or reactive agility drills)
can be prescribed for an individual player’s needs.
However, despite the importance of reactive agility
for team sports, few studies have investigated
whether this quality can be improved through train-
ing. Consequently, the present results should be
considered a starting point for further research in
this area.
References
1. Meir R, Arthur D, Forrest M. Time and motion analysis of
professional rugby league: a case study. Strength Cond Coach
1993;1:24—9.
2. Meir R, Newton R, Curtis E, et al. Physical fitness qualities
of professional rugby league players: determination of posi-
tional differences. J Strength Cond Res 2001;15:450—8.
3. Gabbett T, Kelly J, Ralph S, et al. Physiological and anthro-
pometric characteristics of junior elite and sub-elite rugby
league players, with special reference to starters and non-
starters. J Sci Med Sport, in press.
4. Sheppard JM, Young WB. Agility literature review: classi-
fications, training and testing. J Sports Sci 2006;24:919—
32.
5. Sheppard JM, Young WB, Doyle TA, et al. An evaluation
of a new test of reactive agility, and its relationship to
sprint speed and change of direction speed. J Sci Med Sport
2006;9:342—9.
6. Farrow D, Young W, Bruce L. The development of a test of
reactive agility for netball: a new methodology. J Sci Med
Sport 2005;8:52—60.