Coaches' Assessment of Players Physical Performance: Subjective and Objective Measures are needed when Profiling Players.

This mixed methods study aimed to assess the agreement between coaches ranking of youth rugby league players compared against objective physical performance data and gather coaches' subjective descriptions of their players performance. Five hundred and eight male rugby league players (U16  = 255, U18  = 253) completed a fitness testing battery of anthropometric and physical performance measures. Subsequently, 22 rugby ( = 11) and strength and conditioning (S&C) coaches ( = 11) ranked each player's physical qualities using a 4-point Likert scale (1 - top 25%; 2-25-50%; 3-50-75%; and 4 - bottom 25%) and described their performance.

"It's Important, but It's Not Everything": Practitioners' Use, Analysis and Perceptions of Fitness Testing in Academy Rugby League.

A plethora of research exists examining the physical qualities of rugby league players. However, no research has investigated practitioners' insights into the use, analysis and perceptions of such fitness testing data that is vital for applying research into practice. Therefore, this study aimed to examine practitioners' (coaches and strength & conditioning [S&C] coaches) perceptions and challenges of using fitness testing and the development of physical qualities.