Using Appreciative Inquiry to explore Australian football coaches' experience with game sense coaching

This paper reports on a project framed as a strengths-based case study in the field of sport coaching. The aim of this research was twofold. First, the project trialled. Appreciate Inquiry (AI) for sport pedagogy research and explain how AI can be used in sport coaching research. Second, using an appreciative perspective, the aim of the research was to find greater meaning in the two coaches' practice to explain the forces driving the shaping and the implementation of Game Sense (GS) coaching. This is particularly pertinent given strong advocacy for GS as a preferred sport pedagogy but a slow deployment in the field of sport coaching in Australia. Through the story of experience that emerged a reculturing of coaching practice was revealed and the elements that sustained GS coaching highlighted. This research improves understanding of decisions made by coaches to change practice and which are sustained because they bring ‘life’ to the coach. AI has not been used previously to case study coaching practice generally and GS coaching in Australian football specifically. Further research examining the long-term and accumulated benefits of AI for qualitative sport coaching research is proposed, as is further investigation of coaches' experience with GS coaching across a broad range of sports from entry and grassroots through to elite level sport.     

The microstructure of coaching practice: behaviours and activities of an elite rugby union head coach during preparation and competition

The activities and behaviours of a female head coach of a national rugby union team were recorded in both training and competition, across a whole rugby season, using the newly developed Rugby Coach Activities and Behaviours Instrument (RCABI). The instrument incorporates 24 categories of behaviour, embedded within three forms of activity (training form (TF), playing form (PF) and competitive match) and seven sub-activity types. In contrast to traditional drill-based coaching, 58.5% of the training time was found to have been spent in PF activities. Moreover, the proportion of PF activities increased to a peak average of 83.8% in proximity to the team’s annual international championship. Uniquely, one of the coach’s most prolific behaviours was conferring with associates (23.3%), highlighting the importance of interactions with assistant coaches, medical staff and others in shaping the coaching process. Additionally, the frequencies of key behaviours such as questioning and praise were found to vary between the different activity forms and types, raising questions about previous conceptions of effective coaching practice. The findings are discussed in the light of the Game Sense philosophy and the role of the head coach.     

Developing rugby in interwar Romania: the case of provincial cities and towns

ABSTRACT

The growth in interest for the historical analysis of sports in Romania has lately been focusing more on general issues or on the major sports (for instance, football). As a result, despite its early apparition in Romania (1913), and its development in comparison with other Central European countries, Rugby has been completely ignored. The aim of this article is to analyze the ways in which the development of the sport was attempted in Interwar Romania. This is a case study focused on the efforts to popularise rugby in the towns outside of Bucharest, the capital of Romania. These efforts were administered in a combination of two ways: the propaganda rugby matches in different cities and the organisation of rugby teams in provincial cities and were based more on individual actions rather than the coordinated action of the Romanian Rugby management of those times. The conclusions emphasise the minor success of this initiative, contextualising it in the rugby and sports’ condition in Interwar Romania.     

Bigger,stronger, faster,fitter: the differences in physical qualities of school and academy rugby union players

Limited research has compared the physical qualities of adolescent rugby union (RU) players across differing playing standards. This study therefore compared the physical qualities of academy and school Under-18 RU players. One-hundred and eighty-four (professional regional academy, n = 55 school, n = 129) male RU players underwent a physical testing battery to quantify height, body mass, strength (bench press and pull-up), speed (10, 20 and 40 m), 10 m momentum (calculated; 10 m velocity * body mass) and a proxy measure of aerobic fitness (Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test Level 1; IRTL1). The practical significance of differences between playing levels were assessed using magnitude-based inferences. Academy players were taller (very likely small), heavier (likely moderate) and stronger (bench press possibly large; pull-up plus body mass likely small) than school players. Academy players were faster than school players over 20 and 40 m (possibly and likely small), although differences in 10 m speed were not apparent (possibly trivial). Academy players displayed greater 10 m momentum (likely moderate) and greater IRTL1 performance (likely small) than school players. These findings suggest that body size, strength, running momentum, 40 m speed and aerobic fitness contribute to a higher playing standard in adolescent rugby union.     

In pursuit of becoming a senior coach: the learning culture for Australian Football League coaches

Background and Purpose: Given the turbulent and highly contested environment in which professional coaches work, a prime concern to coach developers is how coaches learn their craft. Understanding the learning and development of senior coaches (SCs) and assistant coaches (ACs) in the Australian Football League (AFL – the peak organisation for Australian Rules Football) is important to better develop the next generation of performance coaches. Hence the focus of this research was to examine the learning of SC and AC in the AFL. Fundamental to this research was an understanding that the AFL and each club within the league be regarded as learning organisations and workplaces with their own learning cultures where learning takes place. The purpose of this paper was to examine the learning culture for AFL coaches.

Method: Five SCs, 6 ACs, and 5 administrators (4 of whom were former coaches) at 11 of the 16 AFL clubs were recruited for the research project. First, demographic data were collected for each participant (e.g. age, playing and coaching experience, development and coach development activities). Second, all participants were involved in one semi-structured interview of between 45 and 90 minutes duration. An interpretative (hierarchical content) analysis of the interview data was conducted to identify key emergent themes.

Results: Learning was central to AFL coaches becoming a SC. Nevertheless, coaches reported a sense of isolation and a lack of support in developing their craft within their particular learning culture. These coaches developed a unique dynamic social network (DSN) that involved episodic contact with a number of respected confidantes often from diverse fields (used here in the Bourdieuian sense) in developing their coaching craft. Although there were some opportunities in their workplace, much of their learning was unmediated by others, underscoring the importance of their agentic engagement in limited workplace affordances.

Conclusion: The variety of people accessed for the purposes of learning (often beyond the immediate workplace) and the long time taken to establish networks of supporters meant that a new way of describing the social networks of AFL coaches was needed; DSN. However, despite the acknowledged utility of learning from others, all coaches reported some sense of isolation in their learning. The sense of isolation brought about by professional volatility in high-performance Australian Football offers an alternative view on Hodkinson, Biesta and James' attempt in overcoming dualisms in learning.