The Rise of Women’s Sport
AFLW athlete skilled performance research can contribute to the league’s progression
By Dr Emily Cust
The growth of women’s sport from grassroots to professional competition is an exciting movement. There is great potential to capitalise on this across several domains including sponsorship deals, industry collaborations, and increased youth community sport participation. In Australia, the initiation of Rugby League, Women’s Big Bash League, and AFLW, has paved the way for many women to achieve their elite sporting goals. Despite this, female-specific research in sport is relatively minimal compared to that on male participants, thus limiting the discovery of key knowledge which can be applied to coaching and competition practices.
Since the introduction of an elite women’s Australian Football competition (AFLW) in 2017, the skilled performances of athletes have improved each season. Although there are still several challenges in working towards long-term sustainable development of the league, research providing specific insights into aspects of women’s Australian Rules football (AF) training and competition could be an important aid in fostering athlete development. In elite soccer, several studies indicate that coaching of skills may need to be adapted to suit men’s and women’s kick biomechanics as several key differences were found between how curve and instep kicks are executed for example, see here. Progressive female focused research has identified and informed tailored soccer kick coaching cues with specific focus to address the fundamental points for accurate curved kicks based on the kinematics of elite female athletes.
Apply men’s football research to women’s practice?
In the men’s AF league, the athlete's skilled performances in matches and training has been researched extensively creating important knowledge of the game, for example see here, here, and here. The research can be readily applied towards forming evidence-based practices for training drill designs, skill acquisition and game tactical approaches. The AFLW currently has a unique set of constraints compared to the men’s league such as alterations in match rules, reduced training and sport science support structures, less defined athlete development pathways, and a high number of cross-code athletes transitioning from another sport. Consequently, the transferability of men's research to the women’s game is questionable and/or unknown.
Early research on the match physical demands and match skill performance profiles from the first season of the AFLW provided initial benchmarks and insights into the characteristics of AFLW match play. The training loads from one AFLW team across the 2020 season were quantified and analysed relative to match intensity demands which indicates how training drills could be adapted to simulate match intensity ranges. Although the findings from these studies provide insights into the physical and technical nature of the AFLW, overall, sport science research on women’s AF performance has been limited despite the considerable expansion of the league and importance of creating solid foundations for athlete skills and talent development pathways.
AFLW athlete match skilled performances
To enhance knowledge of the technical characteristics in women's AF, we looked at what the first two seasons of the AFLW tell us about how individual athlete's match skills contribute to a team’s success. Using data from 13 athlete skill performance indicators obtained from each AFLW player in each quarter of match play over the 2017 and 2018 seasons, we aimed to see how skilled performances explained match quarter outcomes. This was achieved by evaluating the relationships in the data using two machine learning methods across 22 developed models. By modelling the athlete’s performance indicator data by quarter rather than a match as a whole allowed for more specific information about how athlete’s skills are influencing shorter phases of a match. Practically this is important for AF as coaches have the chance to address the team and reset individual player and team tactics during quarter and half-time breaks. Interesting results were found from extracting and modelling the distribution of individual athlete match skills in relation to how they contribute to their team’s success. The relative importance of each athlete’s effective execution of inside 50s, short and long kicks, and goal conversion rates in contributing to team match success was strongly evident. In contrast to the men’s elite game, there are comparatively higher performance contributions leading to a team’s success from key individual athletes. Whereas in the men’s game, research has shown that there is a relatively even distribution of individual athlete skilled performance contributions to their team’s match outcome.
AFLW kick biomechanics
As research results in both men’s and women’s AF indicate that individual player strong kick skills are important to team success, it was of interest to establish the drop punt kick biomechanics profile of elite female AF players. Technical analysis of a key AF skill was important to firstly identify how AFLW results compare to elite male AF players, and secondly, to identify and inform specific kick development coaching practices for female AF athletes as the women’s game continues to grow. Using a 3D motion capture system, we quantified elite women’s foot and ball velocities, kick impact efficiency (ball: foot ratio), kick movement patterns and kick strategies. The most interesting differences between women’s and men’s AF kicks were found in the movement patterns where in summary, the women achieved greater mean knee and hip angles, and knee angular velocities for both their preferred and non-preferred kick legs but less knee flexion on the support leg during higher impact kicks. Identifying technical kick skill differences for individual athletes and from the male cohort research directly affects coaching approaches that will contribute to achieving accurate and powerful kicks for women. Furthermore, due to the high impact and repetitive nature of kicking in AF, knowing kinematic discrepancies between kick legs could contribute to athlete-specific strength programming for either injury prevention or increased force production of long kicks.
Progressing women’s sport science research and support
Understanding the unique characteristics of AFLW skilled performance outcomes and highlighting the differences to men’s AF research may allow for targeted information in relation to individual players and team dynamics. As the AFLW progresses and more data becomes available, longitudinal comparisons would be of interest to establish trends of the game and inform strategic developments moving forward. Spatiotemporal data characteristics could be analysed to explain the unique team behaviours in match play styles and tactics of women’s AF. The utility of inertial measurement units (IMUs) could be implemented to semi-automated skill and performance analysis during training. Furthermore, investigating the contextual variables around match play on the outcome such as, travel requirements, days between matches and player bench rotations per quarter given the unlimited number allowed would be of interest. Specifically, with the current shorter nine-round home-and-away season plus three-week finals series, increased importance is on the outcome of each match for ladder positioning. The research concepts from the AFLW studies here can also be applied to other major sporting leagues building their elite women’s competition as stand-alone from their established men’s competition. In the highly competitive and uncertain landscape of professional sport, generating quantified knowledge to improve athlete performance and competition standards can be a worthwhile investment for securing a sustainable future for women’s sport. Increased university, institution, club and manufacturer collaborations and entrepreneurial innovation may be a key influence in solving this gap in sport science research.
Paper citations
Cust, E. E., Sweeting, A. J., Ball, K., Anderson, H., & Robertson, S. (2019). The relationship of team and individual athlete performances on match quarter outcome in elite women’s Australian Rules football. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 22(10), 1157–1162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2019.05.004
Cust, E. E., Ball, K., Sweeting, A., & Robertson, S. (2019). Biomechanical Characteristics of Elite Female Australian Rules Football Preferred and Non-preferred Drop Punt Kicks. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Sport Sciences Research and Technology Support, 32–37. https://doi.org/10.5220/0008066300320037
Cust, E. E., Sweeting, A. J., Ball, K., Robertson, S., Cust, E. E., Sweeting, A. J., Ball, K., Robertson, S., Cust, E. E., & Sweeting, A. J. (2020). Classification of Australian football kick types in- situation via ankle-mounted inertial measurement units measurement units. Journal of Sports Sciences, 00(00), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2020.1868678