Coaches' Assessment of Players Physical Performance: Subjective and Objective Measures are needed when Profiling Players

<p>This mixed methods study aimed to assess the agreement between coaches ranking of youth rugby league players compared against objective physical performance data and gather coaches' subjective descriptions of their players performance. Five hundred and eight male rugby league players (U16 <i>n</i> = 255, U18 <i>n</i> = 253) completed a fitness testing battery of anthropometric and physical performance measures. Subsequently, 22 rugby (<i>n</i> = 11) and strength and conditioning (S&C) coaches (<i>n</i> = 11) ranked each player's physical qualities using a 4-point Likert scale (1 - top 25%; 2-25-50%; 3-50-75%; and 4 - bottom 25%) and described their performance. U16 S&C coaches displayed fair agreement when assessing players body mass (39.3%, κ = 0.20). U18 rugby coaches demonstrated fair agreement for strength and size (42.5%, κ = 0.23) and body mass (48.7%, κ = 0.31) whilst both U18 rugby and S&C coaches showed fair agreement levels for endurance (39.8%, κ = 0.25, 44.3%, κ = 0.29), respectively. Three higher-order themes were identified from coaches' descriptions of players including physical, rugby and attitude characteristics when evaluating performance. Overall, coaches cannot accurately assess players physical performance against fitness testing data. Though, findings suggest coaches adopt a multidimensional approach when evaluating players performance. Practitioners within talent development systems should utilise both objective and subjective assessments when making decisions regarding players performance.</p><p><b>Highlights</b><ul><li>Rugby and S&C coaches cannot accurately assess all aspects of players physical performance.</li><li>The greatest assessment agreement was for body mass, strength and size, and endurance, while the poorest were for strength, acceleration, and maximum speed.</li><li>Rugby and S&C coaches considered rugby, physical and attitude attributes when evaluating players.</li><li>Findings highlight the complex nature of physical profiling. Subjective and objective measures are required to provide an accurate description of players physical performance.</li></ul></p>