THE VISUAL SKILLS OF

PROFESSIONAL AND AMATEUR

RUGBY PLAYERS

2003

ALIDA ANELIA LUDEKE

THE VISUAL SKILLS OF PROFESSIONAL AND
AMATEUR RUGBY PLAYERS

by

ALIDA ANELIA LUDEKE

DISSERTATION

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree

MAGISTER PHILOSOPHIAE

in
OPTOMETRY
in the
FACULTY OF SCIENCE
at the
RAND AFRIKAANS UNIVERSITY

SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR JT FERREIRA

NOVEMBER 2003
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

§ I would like to thank Prof. Jannie Ferreira for his advice, patience, encouragement
and enthusiasm towards sports vision

§ Will Koster at the STATKON department for his help and advice

§ Emil Nell at the optometry department for her thorough editing

§ Frans Ludeke, my husband. Thank you for your love and support and for
believing in me.

§ Colleagues in the Department of Optometry and office of the Dean

§ My parents, Koos and Julie for giving me opportunities.

§ All my family and friends for their prayers, support and encouragement.

For I always pray to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that
He may grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the deep and intimate
knowledge of Him. And so that you can know and understand what is the
immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power in and for
us who believe, as demonstrated in the working of His mighty strength. [ Eph 1:
17-19]

Thank you Father for granting me a spirit of wisdom and revelation.

DEDICATED TO
FRANS
 ABSTRACT

This study consists of three separate publications. The first article attempts to evaluate
the difference in the visual skill level of professional versus non-professional rugby
players. The software visual skills, involving skills such as eye- hand coordination, eye-
body coordination, central-peripheral awareness, and reaction time, were examined. The
results indicate that the professional players did out perform the non-professional players
on all these skills except for visual concentration. Not all the results were however
statistically significant. The importance of the above skills in the game of rugby is
discussed and recommendations as to the implementation of vision enhancement
programmes are made.

The second study explores the importance of the ‘hardware’ factors of the visual system
in the game of rugby. A group of professional and club rugby players were tested and the
results compared. The results were also compared with the established norms for elite
athletes. The findings indicate no significant difference in hardware skills between
professional and club players. Compared with the norms for elite athletes, performance of
most of the rugby players were average or even worse. This suggests that in the game of
rugby the hardware skills may be of lesser importance and that visual enhancement
programmes should focus more on improving the players’ software skills. The hardware
visual skills should not be neglected though because these provide a base from where the
software skills can develop.

Thirdly we wanted to determine whether there are a statistically significantly difference

between the visual skill levels of forward and back line players in rugby and whether they
performed visually according to the norms established for elite athletes. The results
indicates that there is much room for improvement for both forward and back line players
in eye-hand coordination, visual concentration and central-peripheral awareness because
these skills, play an important role in a sport like rugby and because the players under
performed according to the established norms.
Thus attentio n should be given to develop the hardware visual skills like
accommodation and fusion to an average level of performance, to eliminate any
potential limits on the software visual skills. Consistent, position specific visual
training should be incorporated in the daily training routine of these players to
develop the software visual skills to their full potential.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION, CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS AND AIM

OF THE STUDY

1. INTRODUCTION 1
2. CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS 2
3. THE AIM OF THE STUDY 4
4. METHODOLOGY OF RESEARCH 5
5. THE OUTLINE OF THE STUDY 6
6. REFERENCES 7

CHAPTER 2

THE DIFFERENCE IN VISUAL SKILLS BETWEEN

PROFESSIONAL VERSUS NON-PROFESSIONAL RUBGY
PLAYERS

1. INTRODUCTION 1
2. METHOD 15
3. RESULTS 17
4. DISCUSSION 21
5. REFERENCES 23
 CHAPTER 3

THE ROLE OF THE VISUAL HARDWARE SYSTEM IN

RUGBY
PERFORMANCE

1. INTRODUCTION 26
2. METHOD 30
3. ANALYSIS 31
4. RESULTS 32
5. DISCUSSION 38
6. REFERENCES 39

CHAPTER 4

THE DIFFERENCE IN PERFORMANCE LEVELS IN

VISUAL SKILLS BETWEEN FORWARD AND BACK LINE
RUGBY PLAYERS

1. INTRODUCTION 43
2. METHOD 46
3. RESULTS 49
4. DISCUSSION 58
5. REFERENCES 63
 CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

1. INTRODUCTION 66
2. OVERVIEW 66
3. CONCLUSION 67
4. RECOMMENDATIONS 68
5. REFERENCES 69

ADDENDUM A

1. SPORTS VISION ASSESSMENT FORM