| dc.description.abstract | Talent identification is a long-term process where potential sportsmen are identified and developed in a specific type of sport. A longitudinal study or monitoring of talent provides the best results because development of the skills of sportsmen as well as the development of certain key factors will ensure success. Growth and development will play an important role in effective talent identification as a long-term process. The objective of the present study was firstly to establish the effect that growth
had over the period of six years on ten year-old rugby players who have been identified as talented. The second objective was to determine if the initial successful group (thirteen year-olds), after a further three years still gave the best performance with regard to game-specific, physical and motor and psychological" components according to specific tests and measurements. The
third and last objective of this study was to make a comparison after a period of six years between the initial successful ten year-old rugby players with another sixteen year-old group of rugby players who have been identified as talented. This study took place in two phases. Phase one has already been concluded and entails the identification and composition of the talented group, the
development programme and its evaluation (10 - 13 years). Three testing occasions were fixed apart from the initial identification that took place during October 1994, namely March 1995, August and June 1996. The players were divided into two groups, namely group 1 (the group which was in fact selected for the Craven Week Primary School Team - the successful group), and group 2
(the group that was not selected in the final selection of the Craven Week Primary School Team). According to this, the results of the two groups with regard to game-specific skills, physical and motor abilities and anthropometric measurements, were compared. Phase two entailed the evaluation of the identified group at ages 14, 15 and 16
years as well as a comparison between the initially successful and unsuccessful group. During these evaluations the same battery that was used during June 1996 was mainly used, with some additions of other tests to improve the comprehensiveness according to the demands of the game. During the final
tests a psychological questionnaire as compiled by Loehr (1986), was used to
compare the initial talented group with the results of the study of Hare (1997). During phase one of the study, basic statistical analyses and discriminant analyses were conducted on the data. Discriminant analyses were used to establish the discriminatory factors between the successful and unsuccessful groups. During phase two time series data were used. Variance analyses with multiple measurings were used with effect magnitudes to determine the practically significant differences. The SAS computer package of the PU for CHE as well as Statistica was used to process the data. As far as the first objective of this study is concerned, the results indicated that growth and development had a positive influence on the rugby-specific skills, physical and motor skills as well as the anthropometric variables. The second objective focused mainly on the results of tests done in June 1997 and June
1999 between group 1 and 2. The results showed that at the end of the study, group 1 were still performing better than group 2 in almost all rugby-specific skills, physical and motor abilities as well as anthropometric variables. It is interesting to note that the difference in results was much smaller than in the beginning of the study. The third objective regarding psychological variables
showed that the talented group of 1997 were better equipped psychologically than the talented group of 1999. In summary it can be reported that growth and development had a significant influence on the performance of talented rugby players over a period of six years. | en_US |
