unit 5 research project

Unit 5 Research Project

Worthing College Sports Science[Iain Lynch]

2015

To see if there is a relationship between the weight of a scrum and the ability to have a

successful scrum.

P2: Carry out / P4: Produce

AbstractFor my research project, I have been studying the pack weights for a number of teams in the Aviva rugby premiership to see if there is a relationship between the pack weights and the number of scrums that team is able to win in a single game and if they can maintain this success throughout the season. This project meant I had to compile data from a number of different website and organise into a table from which I would gather my data from once I started to analysis the matches. This research project was all to be conducted as desk research, as an observational task, as all I was doing was collecting quantitative secondary data and analysing it. Once I had all this data about the players and their weights, the next step in my method was to analysis the matches played to get the required statistics, starting 8 in the scrum and the scrummaging statistics of the match. Once I have all the data I need I will compare both of these factors against those of the matches I will figure out the averages of the scrummaging success for each team in each of their games and their average pack weights. The results I got from my research showed that the teams with the heavier packs had the more successful scrummaging successful on average, over the course of the game I studied. The results were what I was predicting, in terms of the heavier pack having the greater successful in the scrums, although I was apprehensive about the results as there are other factors which could contribute to a teams scrummaging success, such as through technique. The results showed that there is a relationship between the pack weights and the scrummaging success as well as correlation.


Contents: GeneralPage 2 – Project AimPage 3 – Abstract – General ContentPage 5 – Appendices ContentPage 6 – Figures & Tables ContentPage 7 – AcknowledgementsPage 8 – IntroductionPage 9 – Literature Review & ReferencesPage 10 – Project HypothesesPage 11 – MethodPage 12 – Data CollectionPage 13 – Data Analysis Page 14 – ResultsPage 15 – DiscussionPage 16 – ConclusionPage 17 – Review 1/3Page 18 – Review 2/3Page 19 – Review 3/3Page 20 – Future Recommendations 1/5Page 21 – Future Recommendations 2/5Page 22 – Future Recommendations 3/5Page 23 – Future Recommendations 4/5Page 24 – Future Recommendations 5/5


Contents: Appendices

Page 25 – Research Project Appendix Page 26 – Appendix 1Page 27 – Appendix 2Page 28 – Appendix 3Page 29 – Appendix 4


Contents: Figures and Tables

Page 30 – Research Project Figures & TablesPage 31 – Figures & Tables 1Page 32 – Figures & Tables 2Page 33 – Figures & Tables 3Page 34 – Figures & Tables 4


Acknowledgements

• I would like to thanks the Aviva Premiership website as well as: London Wasps; London Welsh; Bath Rugby; Harlequins and Northampton Saints for allowing me to have access to their information.

• Thanks to Paul Cox for the resources needed to complete this unit


IntroductionMy research project which I have spent the last several weeks on, is to found out if there is a relationship between pack weight and the ability to have a successful scrum. I chose to study this as I, myself play as a forward and I am aware that over the last 10 years of the sport, the laws and regulations regarding the scrum have changed to try and make it safer to the players involved. So I wanted to know if the new regulations required teams to rethink the way they scrummage, as 10 years ago it was all about the big hit and having the weight to push the opposition off the ball, but with the way the sport has advanced and developed in recent years, is the scrum still all about that big hit and having a weight advance over the opposition.


Literature Review and References

https://worthingsportscience.wordpress.com/2015/02/27/unit-5-literacy-review-iain-lynch/

..\Unit 5 abstracts.docx





Project Hypothesis

For my research project I have 2 hypotheses which I want to find out. The first is to find out if the team with the heavier pack is able to have a more successful scrums during a game, and does this have an effect on them winning the game. The second is to find out whether or not the team with the constantly heavier pack is able to maintain a successful scrum throughout the season. I am going to do this by studying the individual games statistics and then compare them to other games throughout the season. I think the heavier teams will be able to win more scrums, giving them a greater success percentage. However, whether or not this will mean they are able to win the match is a different discussion.


Method

For my method of the research project, my project is primarily desk based research, as I am gathering all my data from a secondary source. Once I have collected all of the data I need, I will be looking at the starting pack for the teams I am studying in certain games, combining the players individual weights to calculate an overall pack weight. Once I have the packs weight I will look at the games statistics for the scrums, to see how many each team had won and lost during the game. I will repeat this process for all the teams I am studying, and then I will be analysing the results to see if there is a relationship between the pack weight and their ability to win the scrums.

P3: Collect and record / M2: Correctly analyse & describe techniques / D1: Correctly analyse & explain techniques

Data Collection

To collect all the required data I needed I gathered it all from doing desk research as all the data to secondary sourced. Once I have gathered it all from the online sources and have collected and organised the data in a nominal classification, as I have categorised the players into their teams, and then again by their position. To get all the players information I had to go into each teams individual website and search each players profiles. The only other data I need to collect is the game statistics which I was able to gather from a single website.


Data AnalysisFor my research project the data collection and analysis technique I have used is by doing desk research, the data I have collected is quantitative data and is of a secondary source, which I am using to back up my research Hypothesis. I will be analysing the data I have gathered by looking at the starting pack of the teams and by combining the players individual weights to calculate an overall pack weight, as that is what I am focusing my project on. Next stage was to look at statistics for the scrums from each game, to see how many each team had won and lost during the game, and to get an more accurate reading I got an percentage of the scrummaging success. I repeated this process for all the teams I am studying, and then I analysed the results to see if there is a relationship between the pack weight and their ability to win the scrums, so this is also a comparative study. I have collected and organised the data in a nominal classification, as I have categorised the players into their teams, and then by their position respectively. The techniques I used represent the my data analysis was by using the spearman ranking and correlation. I used this because I felt it would be the best way to analysis the data as it gives an negative and positive results, and it shows how strong the correlation. A correlation shows the relationship between 2 or more things on a 1 to -1 rating. For my research the correlation is between the pack weight and the scrummaging success rate. My results were 0.85, which means that I have a very strong positive correlation between my 2 factors, which shows that as the pack weight goes up so does the scrum success rate.


Results

The results I have gathered show that there is a correlation between the average pack weight and the average success rate of the scrums. From this I can then determine that there is a relationship the pack weight and their ability to win the scrums. However there were 2 teams who had the same matching highest scrummaging success percentage. One of these teams, London Welsh, who have the average highest pack weight and also have the highest average scrummaging success, having a correlation of 0, however they have still yet to win a game on the premier league this season. The team which had the lowest average pack weight, Saints, also had the lowest average scrummaging success rate, correlation of 0, however they have had much better results than Welsh, which means that my hypothesis is partly correct.


Discussion

The results I got I was expecting as the teams which do have the heavier pack are able to have a better scrummaging success rate, however as I was expecting the players don’t have the cardiovascular endurance, and the team struggle in other parts of the game, such as in open play, getting to the break downs. However the only part of the game which I was analysing is the scrums. The team which has the lowest average pack weight, is also the team which is currently top of the Aviva premiership, which means that though they have a smaller pack they are able to get an advantage in other parts of the game.


ConclusionMy aim of the project was ‘To see if there is a relationship between the weight of a scrum and the ability to have a successful scrum.’From the results I have gathered I can see that there is a relationship between the weight of the scrum and the ability to have a successful scrum, as I wanted to find out in the aim. One of my hypotheses which was to see if the team with the pack was able to maintain a successful scrum throughout the session. The other which is to see if the pack with the heavier weight was able to have a more successful scrum rate during a game and whether or not they can turn that into a win. From the statistics I have gathered the teams with the heavier pack have not been able to turn the a successful scrum rate and heavier pack into a win, this could be down to a number of different factors, such as fitness.


Review (1/3)I feel that the conclusions from my project met my project aim of ‘To see if there is a relationship between the weight of a scrum and the ability to have a successful scrum’. In my study in found that London Welsh on average had the heaviest pack, and from the games I analyzed they also had the better scrummaging success, and they were ranked highest in the spearman rankings of my data analysis. However they are yet to turn this advantage they have into winning advantage, although there are a number of different factors which have to be considered and which could influence the teams ability to win a match. Teams could benefit from doing this sort of study as for example, is this case London Welsh though having the most successful scrums, are the team who are bottom of the league. They can benefit from this as they can justify that this is not their weakest area of the game, therefore allowing them to focus more no other areas of the game.

P5: Describe / M3: Explain / D2: Justify

Review (2/3)

The strengths of my research project, I feel would have to be the data collection and the way I categorised the qualitative, secondary data (see Appendix 1-3). This data was easily accessible and to find. This meant it didn’t take long to find and gather all of my required data and meant I could focus on other parts of my project. If I however wanted to do my first future recommendation, I wouldn’t struggle with collecting the data as I had already the means and know how of how to find the information that I need.


Review (3/3)

My area for improvement would be the literacy review, as in my opinion I struggled with this as I found it difficult to find appropriate abstracts which share a common Population, Measure and Variable to mine. The ones I did found and use I feel are useable however I would of preferred better ones which share more in common with my research project aim, or even amend my aim slightly, if it meant I would benefit more from finding abstracts which matched either my: population; measure or variable.


Future Recommendations (1/5)

If I was to do my project again, I would also have looked at the forwards replacements to see how those players influence the game and whether or not they have a impact on the (scrums.), this would mean breaking the game down even more which would then give me more data for each game to analysis and compare. This sort of data would be useful for the coaching staff of the team as they can compare a number of players playing in the same position during a game against the same opposition, as for example they could see which prop was better at winning their individual battle against their opposite man.

P4: Produce / P5: Describe / M3: Explain / D2: Justify


If I was to run my research project again, one recommendation that I would make would be see if there was another why to analysis the data I have collected and then see there is another why in which I could present it, possibly presenting it in a number of graphs and tables and then do a comparative study. This way it makes it clearer to understand for me and presentable. The benefits of this if it was successful would be if you struggled to understand the spearman ranking and correlation results the graphs would make it easier to understand as there would be a graphs with all the teams pack weights, I feel a bar graph would represent this best, and a pie chart for the scrum successes as they are in percentages.



Another recommended improvement for my research project would be, as well as studying all 12 teams within the selected league, as well as analysing more games by looking at all rounds of fixtures for the teams. This would mean I would have a lot more data to gather; categorise; chart and correlate. This would mean I would have a better set of data and could then have a better results which would give me a better conclusion for my research.



Another thing I could of done if I wanted to be more specific would be to focus on a single team from the premiership and analysis all their games, across all competitions. I would then go into detail analysing the games, and stating how squad selection could have been an factor in the result, and how the squad can change depending on the competition being played as well as when players are away on international duty or injury. This then gives those players who don’t normally get a lot of game time a chance to show themselves and prove they are capable of performing, and challenging for a permanent place in the team.



Another recommendation I could do if I was to do this research project again would be that I could do a comparison between the pack weights of teams in different countries, to see if there a difference between the playing styles and the general physic of the players. I would do this by studying teams from both the southern and northern hemisphere, as it is generally suspected that northern hemisphere teams are more physical up front. This would give me the ability to test this theory and see if there is a significant difference between players physics in the 2 hemisphere teams, I would do this by looking at the players profiles and comparing them the players to their opposite number.


Research Project Appendices

Appendix 1

http://www.premiershiprugby.com/home.php#5QREExw88GosO30d.97

I used the Aviva website to gather the game statistics.





Appendix 2

http://www.bathrugby.com/team/first-fifteen-squad

http://www.quins.co.uk/team/

http://www.london-welsh.co.uk/index.php?mod=rugby_squad








Appendix 3

http://www.northamptonsaints.co.uk/Rugby/Profiles.aspx

http://www.wasps.co.uk/players-staff







Appendix 4

I made this table after gathering the information from the above websites

Research Project Figures and Tables

Figures and Tables 1

This is one of the


This is how I then gathered together the starting 8 from each team, and got an overall pack weight, as well as find the an average weight and a success rate of their scrum.


This table showing the rating and the spearman ranking and correlation.


Spearman ranking and correlation (continued).

unit 5 research project

Documents

results page

appendices page

general page

method page

abstract page

acknowledgements page

introduction page

discussion page