Assessing the locomotor demands of international men’s and women’s rugby sevens match-play according to passage of play

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of discrete passages of play on locomotor demands of international men’s and women’s rugby sevens matches and their relationship with winning or losing. Thirteen men’s and thirteen women’s international rugby sevens players wore 10 Hz Global Positioning Systems during twelve Tokyo Olympic games matches (966 observations; 507 for men, 459 for women). Discrete ball-in-play periods were categorised as: ‘Single-phase defence’, ‘single-phase attack’, ‘multi-phase defence’, ‘multi-phase attack’, ‘multi-phase defence to attack’, or ‘multi-phase attack to defence’. Relative total distance, alongside high-speed (>5.0 m∙s-1), acceleration (>3 m∙s-2), and deceleration (>3 m∙s-2) distances were recorded for each passage. Separately for men and women, linear mixed models examined the effect of passage type and match outcome (win or loss) on locomotor demands, whilst controlling for opposition ranking. In men, relative total distance ranged from 137 m∙min-1 to 174 m∙min-1 for ‘multi-phase defence to attack’ and ‘multi-phase attack’, respectively. In women, ‘multi-phase attack’ elicited the lowest relative total distance (118 m∙min-1), whereas the greatest values (186 m∙min-1) were recorded for ‘single-phase defence’. For men, there were significant interactions between match outcome and passage type for relative total (p<0.001) and high-speed (p = 0.006) distance. During ‘multi-phase attack’, relative total distance was greater for wins versus losses (174 vs 138 m.min-1, p = 0.024). However, for ‘single-phase defence’, relative total distance was lower for wins (128 vs 164 m.min-1, p<0.001). For women, there were significant interactions between match outcome and passage type for relative total (p = 0.036), high-speed (p = 0.003), and deceleration (p = 0.015) distances. Locomotor responses were influenced by passage type and match result for men and women. Knowing the demands of each passage type may inform training drills targeted at developing match-play-specific physical, technical, and tactical adaptations. Understanding how passages differ between matches won and lost could also inform team technical/tactical preparation including selection.