What makes a sporting team better than others?
Understanding team behaviour and performance in professional Rugby Union
What makes a sporting team better than others?
Is it team work? Skill?
Or just lots of training?
University of New England sport scientist, Dr Ben Serpell, recently led a study that explored team behaviour and performance in professional rugby union and suggests it’s much more complex than you may think.
Over the course of two Super Rugby competitions, the research team investigated whether certain team behaviours or collective individual actions made any difference to the scoreboard. They also looked at how stress impacts team performance.
“To find out, we conducted two separate studies looking at players in the Australian Super Rugby competition,” says Dr Serpell.
“In study one, we explored team cohesion in sport.
"Using GPS technology, we explored whether the physical proximity of players when play had stopped, otherwise known as clustering, had any correlation between enhanced team function and subsequent performance.
“The second study looked at the effect of stress on individual players and how this impacted intra-team interactions.
“Together, these two studies have helped us shine a light on the complex nature of sporting team performance, and how simply coming together as a team does not guarantee a ‘successful’ performance.”
In the first study looking at the effect of clustering on performance, the researchers found there to be little link between match success and the amount of time the players spent together on the field when match play stopped.
This can be explained by the results of the second study.
“Before team meetings, we monitored the hormone levels of 14 players from the same club," says Dr Serpell.
“During the meetings, each player presented a video clip outlining something positive and something that could be improved from the previous training session.
The first meeting was held after having two days free of training or playing, while the second meeting was held three days later, after players had been exposed to a range of physical and psychological stressors typical of a pre-season training week.
“We also monitored how many times audience members looked at the presenter during both sessions to gauge attentiveness, as well as training quality on both days," he says.
“We found that in the meeting prior to training where players looked at each other more, stress hormone levels were higher and the subsequent training session was of poorer quality."
In the other session, while players appeared to interact with each other less, stress hormone levels were lower and coaches reported a higher quality of play during training.
“What this indicates is that when players are stressed, the team might come together quicker, be physically closer to each other, look at each other more, and be in each other’s presence for longer, but positive interaction and information transfer may not necessarily occur.
“This is consistent with previous research we've conducted which explored hormones and eye pupil behaviour. This showed that elevated stress reduced information received and processed. Similarly, other studies have shown we typically engage in less pro-social behaviour when stressed.”
So, what's the takeaway?
The results show high team performance can be more effectively understood when there is a stronger focus on the stress-levels of individuals and how this may affect intra-group interaction, rather than trying to describe what the team is doing as a whole.
Most importantly, teams can apply this knowledge to build performance, and gain the upper hand on their opponents.
“From an own-team perspective, it makes sense to better understand and strengthen interactions between players to build team resilience.
“From an opposition point of view, it’s valuable to be able to interrupt those interactions within the opposing team using targeted approaches and, hopefully, lessen their performance.
“Therefore, furthering the understanding of the underlying physiology of behaviour not only offers better knowledge, but an improved training monitoring focus.”
This study was funded through the University of Canberra Research Institute for Sport and Exercise, and has been published in a special rugby edition of the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance.
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