Talent development for professional rugby league: observations and analysis from a career in rugby’s high-performance environment

Abstract

Many research theories and frameworks have been proposed to describe the talent development environment in a variety of sports and other high-performance domains. None of these, however, have suitably described the context the first author had experienced in high level rugby league during a career that has spanned 40 years as professional player, club and international coach / manager and more recently as a consultant and researcher. The paper presents current talent development literature in respect to common features that have emerged from this domain. A series of personal reflections then illustrate how these areas are operationalised in rugby league based on the first author’s experiences.What transpires is a clear mis-match between theory and practice and a glaring lack of appropriate support for those who lead in this domain. The paper therefore proposes the need for a new rugby league specific framework which can guide and support those who operate within the rugby league talent development environment.