Operational Insights into Analysing Team and Player Performance in Elite Rugby League: A Narrative Review with Case Examples

Abstract

In professional team sports, like Rugby League, performance analysis has become an integral part of operational practices. This has helped practitioners gain deeper insight into phenomena like team and athlete behaviour and understanding how such behaviour may be influenced by various contextual factors. This information can then be used by coaches to design representative practice tasks, inform game principles and opposition strategies, and even support team recruitment practices. At the elite level, the constant evolution of sports technology (both hardware and software) has enabled greater access to information, making the role of the performance analyst even more valuable. However, this increase in information can create challenges regarding which variables to use to help guide decision-making, and how to present it in ways that can be utilised by coaches and other support staff. While there are published works exploring aspects of performance analysis in team sports like Rugby League, there is yet to be a perspective that explores the various operational uses of performance analysis in Rugby League, the addition of which could help guide the practices of emerging performance analysts in elite organisations like the Australian National Rugby League and the European Super League. Thus, this narrative review—with accompanying case examples—explores the various ways performance analysis can help address pertinent operational questions commonly encountered when working in high-performance sport.