Efficacy of Field Goal Attempts in Ruby League

Efficacy of Field Goal Attempts in Ruby League

The synopsis for this report is to assess the efficacy of field goal attempts by systematically manipulating the control parameter (independent variable) of distance. The dependent variable which will be measured to demonstrate the potential change in the athlete’s performance is the percentage of successful field goal attempts. The aim of this experiment is to determine the distance which is most desirable to take future field goal attempts from, in a game situation. Before conducting this experiment, we have hypothesised that the expect outcome will be, the closer the kick is taken to the goals the higher the percentage of successful attempts will be recorded because of the increased degrees of accuracy in which the environment is affording the athlete to pursue to be successful.

The methodology for this experiment will included four participants: a subject/kicker, passer, recorder and ball retriever (the subject and passer have had multiple years’ experience in this environment). The experiment will be conducted on a rugby field with the correct dimensions which would be encountered in an actual game. The passer will remain situated 10 metres back from the try line. The passer will pass the ball to the kicker and the kicker will then attempt to dropkick the ball through the goals.  This process will then be replicated and the kicker will take 10 shots from 15 metres, 20 metres and 40 metres marks (they are able to take the shot anywhere across the field as long as it is 10 metres in from each sideline). The amount of successful attempts will then be recorded and results will be analysed.

RESULTS

Figure 1: Experimental data – attempts successful from the various distances.

The results found that the subject was most likely to be successful with their field goal attempts from 15 metres out (70%) compared to 20 metres (60%) and 40 metres out (0%). This quantitative data suggests that if this athlete is to be effective in their performance they are to situated themselves across field 15 metres out from the goals.  

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Figure 2: Graph of recorded data.

This above graph shows that the results recorded indicated a slight decrease in success rate from 15 to 20 metres and then a significant decrease from 20 to 40 metres out.

This experiment had many successful aspects to it as it had substantial representation to the game environment through similar environmental and task constraints. The subject was under various conditions which allowed for accurate testing methods to ensure its legitimacy. Despite this experiment being successful there were some limitations which may have hindered the results and testing process including unstimulated fatigue factors, crowd noises and pressure of a game situation (have to make kick or we lose the game). Throughout this experiment the subject used perception action coupling to perceive the distance in which they were situated from the goals and therefore attune his kicking style to allow the ball to travel the required distance, this approach states that perception and action are dependent on one another (Farrow, D. & Abernethy, B. 2003). Moreover, it was evident that by manipulating the constraints of the task it impacted the affordances the environment was offering the athlete as the closer to the goals he was, the less power he required and the more he could focus on the accuracy of his kicks (Fajen, B., Riley, M., & Turvey, M. 2008). Consequently, the further he went back more focus was on the power of his kicks not his accuracy. This subject also showed signs of degeneracy as each field goal attempt was taken from a slightly different part of the field and required a slightly different technique to execute, this degeneracy theory is adaptable to real game situations as no one situation is identical and therefore players need to make slight movement co-ordination changes in different situations (Baker, J. & Farrow, D. 2015).  Therefore, it is evident from the data obtained in this experiment that this particular athlete should be aiming to take all field goal attempts 15 metres out from the posts to have the most likely chance of success.