The Wallabies may be looking for some divine intervention with a team at Australian Catholic University (ACU) looking Australian rugby union’s performance.
ACU and Rugby Australia (RA) have entered into a four-year partnership to support longitudinal performance, retention, and wellbeing of rugby players.
ACU Associate Professor Jonathon Weakley said the agreement would allow for an in-depth exploration into the code’s performance, health and rehabilitation questions in a period encompassing the men’s and women’s World Cups.
Associate Professor Weakley said a critical element of the project would be the involvement of an embedded PhD student who would contribute to the growth of shared knowledge within RA’s pathways.
“It all starts with understanding what a Wallaroos or Wallabies great looks like. Then we can determine how to get there,” he said.
“The PhD student will work with myself and RA to contribute to an evidence base that feeds into a national, longitudinal standardised testing and profiling battery that can enhance the performance, retention, and health of players from grassroots to elite.”
Associate Professor Weakley said while considerable amounts of data were collected, there was still a need to better understand how this data could be used to guide training prescription, monitor changes in physical characteristics, and rank athletes of different playing positions so they could be supported in the sport.
He said the collaboration was part of a wider set of projects between RA and ACU that would explore four main categories, including: injury, testing and profiling, nutrition, and training and match demands.
“Just like we train our athletes, we need to train our sport science staff. Developing and retaining talent is not only an on-field consideration – we need to do it off the field as well.”
Associate Professor Weakley said developing a co-designed, gold-standard assessment battery that could support decision-makers and inform practice across the rugby playing pathway would be the main deliverable.
“It will be research that solves problems and answers questions,” Associate Professor Weakley said.
