Résumé de la conférence

Size diversity is a key characteristic of adolescent sport. In high contact sports such as rugby, social media constantly highlights parents’ anxiety about their child’s safety ; particularly when they have a smaller child playing against a much larger child. Normally, children are assigned to grades in junior rugby that are based on their chronological age but limitations are acknowledged by World Rugby. To address safety issues in junior rugby we profiled size, physical fitness, maturation, acquired some GPS tracking results from selected games and asked about injury fears in approximately 100 adolescent rugby players aged 12 to 14 years of age in the city of Canberra, Australia in 2017. Where players appeared to be outliers (n = 9) in size, fitness and maturation, we asked an independent Level Two coach to asses these players’ on-field performances. We used all the available data to ensure the safety of these outliers in making the decision for an individual player to to play down one age group or up one age group.

Our results provided a solution to grading the minority of age grade players who did not fit within the ‘general rule of age’ and whose status carried a risk to either the player or others on the field.
In 2018, Rugby Australia introduced new policy and procedure for the participation in Rugby aimed at creating inclusion to the fullest extent possible so long as it is safe.

Conférencière

Pr. Geraldine NAUGTHON
Australian Catholic University
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