Manipulating Constraints to Train Decision Making in Rugby Union

Abstract

This paper focuses on the paradoxical relationship between game unpredictability and the certainty of players' actions in team ball sports. Our research on this relationship leads us to suggest a method for training decision making, which we exemplify in the team sport of Rugby Union. The training methodology is based on application of theoretical insights from Ecological Psychology Complex Dynamical Systems and the Constraints-Led Approach. The paper starts with a critical overview of traditional approaches to studying decision making in sport. Next we describe the sport of Rugby Union to exemplify a complex dynamical system, and explain how that conceptualisation captures the interactions of players within that performance context. We conclude our analysis by describing how to manipulate task constraints to improve decision-making performance, as players search for an appropriate blend of stability and variability in their actions. In the final part of the paper, we suggest some methods to train decision making based on four stages: I) identifying the problem; ii) setting out a strategy to solve it; iii) creating an action model; and iv) building a decision-making exercise. The main conclusion from our work for coaches and sports scientists is that decision making should be improved through training methods that provide an accurate balance between stability of actions, which gives structure to the players' performance, and variability which allows them to cope with the uncertainty of situational constraints, such as the behaviour of specific opponents

Territorial gain dynamics regulates success in attacking sub-phases of team sports

“…The achievement of a more advanced position in the field can be simply understood as successful performance and can be evaluated by the degree of territorial gain by assessing the position reached with the ball and its behaviour over time, i.e., its dynamics. Other studies have also shown that the analysis of the dynamics of a single variable could reflect the global dynamics of an entire neurobiological system (e.g., Vereijken et al, 1997) and of the dyadic interactions between team games players (e.g., Passos et al, 2008). Previous studies on the dynamics of decision making behaviours in sport have been mainly focused on team sports, typically in 1vs1 interactions (e.g., Araújo, Davids, Bennett, Button, & Chapman, 2004;Davids et al, 2006), or in dyadic sports (e.g., squash by McGarry et al, 2002).…”

“…Within these playereenvironment interactions, the balance of contestability and continuity, coordination and competition, coexist in a complementary way and are believed to be depicted in team's displacement trajectory during performance. This perspective brings about the need to describe and explain the pattern forming dynamics of system agents over time (Passos, Araújo, Davids, & Shuttleworth, 2008). In rugby union, a chief task constraint on decision making and actions of players is the backward pass (International Rugby Board, 2010).…”

A little less conversation; a little more (relational) action please. A fictional dialogue of integrating theory into coaching practice

“…Such increased attention in the literature regarding the issue of the performer-environment, an issue which had been seldom addressed, has been recognised and focuses on how specific variables change how a system [e.g. learner (s)] ultimately behaves (Magill, 2007).With a key construct of non-linear pedagogy being the grouping of humans as a class of non-linear dynamical systems (Smith & Thelen, 2003;Davids et al, 2008). In a sporting context this describes players as learning through being complex adaptive systems and is underpinned by both the 'constraints led approach ' (Renshaw et al, 2010), and Dynamical Systems Theory (Handford et al, 1997).…”

“…In a sporting context this describes players as learning through being complex adaptive systems and is underpinned by both the 'constraints led approach ' (Renshaw et al, 2010), and Dynamical Systems Theory (Handford et al, 1997). In advocating nonlinear forms of pedagogy where multiple choices evoke complex patterns of learning, it is accepted that learning is not predictable and therefore cannot be adequately explained through simplified models (Chow et al, 2006;Davids et al, 2008) Responding to fluctuations primes the creativity of players because they have to source solutions leading to "the generation of high-quality, original, and elegant solutions to complex, novel, ill-defined problems" (Mumford et al, 2012, p.30). Therefore in establishing a set of circumstances, a player can systematically learn from his/her environment by "observing its surroundings, reacting to it by probing, and observing the environment and subsequently evaluating the success of its reaction" (Newell, 1986, p.348).…”

“…Such fertile pedagogical ground engages deeper more pronounced levels of learning (Renshaw et al, 2010), and the challenge for coaches is to convert blind action into intelligent action through developing a definitive knowledge of the player or team's ecology (Davids et al, 2008). As such, through integrating a CLA approach effectivity, coaches can orchestrate task, environments and learners in such a way that players move into a region of selforganised criticality during practice (Newell, 1986;Davids et al, 2008).Coaches therefore action 'relevant properties' through shaping conditions that encourage performer-environment interactions in order for players to create new patterns of behaviour in their individual performance landscapes (Davids et al, 2012).This paradigm shift provides a more authoritative explanation than computer metaphor inflections (Davids et al, 2008;Gibson, 1979;Handford et al, 1997). Players act on information deemed as essential to shaping movement through probing the environment become attuned to their actions (Davids et al, 2015).…”