National Junior Rugby League Players' Experiences 2017 - Dr Wayne Usher /

Sport participation during adolescence (10–18 years) offers many immediate and long-term benefits; including the formation of positive physical activity behaviours, development of life-skills and physical literacy, and cognitive and social functioning. Policies and strategies that promote enjoyable and challenging Junior sport experiences will encourage greater participation as well as target personal and social development outcomes. Importantly, youth sport involvement can lead to outcomes classified as the 3Ps: performance, participation and personal development. The 3Ps are central to youth sport systems aimed at providing quality experiences to participants (Côté & Hancock, 2016).

Therefore, with this in mind, the aims of this research were to investigate:

• the extent to which a Junior player’s (N = 6597) Rugby League (RL) season (2017), was influenced by four main experiences, being: coaching, player, club and socialisation, and
• how such experiences re-enforce and align with the 3Ps.

There is growing evidence that Junior sport programmes for adolescents can be designed to focus on all three outcomes (3Ps) and be successful in developing skilled performance, maintaining participation rates and enhancing personal development.

Importantly, the National Rugby League (NRL) has noted that a key challenge is to reverse a two percent national decline in total male participation, with the particular problems in keeping the 13 to 18-year-old age groups. These national statistics are reflective of historically similar international trends, whereby it is indicated that one-third of all participants between 10 and 18 years of age withdraw from sport programmes every year (Gould, 1987; Kelley & Carchia, 2013). One of the key issues, for the NRL, is to reduce this decline and work to assure that Junior players have positive, rather than negative experiences in RL, thereby reducing the dropout rate and sustaining long-term participation. It is envisaged, that by exploring why Junior players remain in the game, and by establishing their positive (as well as their negative) experiences, the NRL will be better positioned to create informed future strategies to reverse such a declining national Junior sporting participation trend.

A mixed method (quantitative and qualitative) approach was employed to investigate possible associations between all four experiences. The survey provided Junior players, who returned to play in the 2017 RL season, with the opportunity to record and voice their ‘lived experience’. Findings from this study provide a comprehensive ‘snapshot’ of the current Junior RL landscape, presenting useful findings pertaining to players’ experiences (2017). A summary of results and potential recommendations are presented throughout this report, with the aim to draw attention to some of the more important patterns of associations between the four measurable experiences (coaching, player, club and socialisation). On the basis of these findings, it is recommended that a number of current processes and practices, undertaken by the NRL, require modification or prioritising, to assist with minimising and/or eliminating the various factors that have been identified by Junior participants as points of affect.

Notably, as indicated in Table 1.1, participants were highly positive about such experiences as ‘training and game sessions’, however, they were more critical about such elements of their 2017 RL experience that were associated with ‘fairness’ and ‘player incentives’. Such patterns of associations give support to the previous retention survey, whereby participants who did not return to play in 2017 identified similar trends, albeit, more pronounced. Such data indicate a systemic issue, highlighting that concerns about ‘fairness of selection’ and ‘rewards and incentives’ are highly important to Junior RL players, irrespective of remaining or leaving the game of RL. Significantly[1], players across the Junior group, were mostly similar in their responses concerning these identified highly and lowly rated items (Table 1.1). Given the large number of participants, together with the large number of associations being reported, only those were reported where the probability of achieving the same outcome by chance was less than five in a thousand (p < 0.005). Interestingly, reference to ‘games are fun and exciting’ was deemed to be significantly different to that of players who did not return in 2017, that is, players returning to the game maintained that their experience was fun and enjoyable—this was recorded at a significant level (p < 0.005). A 5-point Likert scale for agreement was used (Strongly disagree = 1, Neutral = 3, Strongly agree = 5).

Table 1.1 - Summary of highly vs lowly top-rated items per focus

Of importance, was the variance between participants’ top ten highest and lowest items of agreement (based on Mean (M)). From such quantitative data findings (Table 1.2 and Table 1.3), it is possible to discern patterns of associations between specific items related to the four experiences (coaching, player, club, and socialisation). Such patterns of responses would seem plausible, given the context of the Junior players’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivational needs. A summary of main quantitative findings, can be identified as follows.

Table 1.2 - Top ten highest responses against participants' four experiences (M)

*based on highest M and p < 0.005*

Table 1.3 - Top ten lowest responses against participants fours experiences (M)

*based on lowest M and p < 0.005

*a low response to feeling ‘overwhelmed and burnt out’ was not considered a negative. Participants do not feel ‘overwhelmed.

To get a sense as to why Junior players continue to return to RL, participants were asked a number of questions (10–12 items) related to:

1. What did the player like most about playing RL?
2. What was the main reason/s for playing RL?

From such items, the highest recorded, positive factors, that impact on a Junior player’s experiences and their main reasons for joining RL and continuing participation are related to:

Like most…

• Wanting to be an NRL player (37%).
• Like playing the game (31%).

Main reason…

• Family members influenced their decision to play (33%).
• They wanted to become an NRL player (21%).

Data was further looked at to determine a profile and associations between LEAVERS (2016) verse STAYERS (2017). Data identified a significant (p < 0.005* and p < 0.000**) pattern of associations between a number of player’s personal variables. These variables provided a profile of a Junior player who is more likely to leave or remain in the game of RL at the end of the 2016 / 17 seasons. Those Junior players who were more likely to leave RL at the end of 2016 were associated with:

• Being a NSWCRL player,
• Living with a single parent,
• More likely to be either at university, unemployed, doing casual or part time work.

Those Junior players who were less likely to leave RL at the end of 2017 and remain in the game, were associated with:

• Being a QLDRL player,
• Being at school,
• Playing in State competitions or Premier, A Grade or A division RL,
• Being male,
• Being younger (younger than 15 years old),
• Generally, more positive on all measures related to all four experiences—coaching, player, club and socialisation.

Reoccurring themes from across the qualitative (player commentaries) data sets were associated strongly with friendships, playing the game and games are fun and exciting. Interestingly, the thematic patterning from the qualitative data went to re-enforce (mirror) the quantitative data uniformity across groups.

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