Alain Mouchet

Improving 'at-action' decision-making in team sports through a holistic coaching approach

This article draws on Game Sense pedagogy and complex learning theory (CLT) to make suggestions for improving decision-making ability in team sports by adopting a holistic approach to coaching with a focus on decision-making ‘at-action’. It emphasizes the complexity of decision-making and the need to focus on the game as a whole entity, where players, individually and collectively, attempt to manage disorder in the face of an opposition. It rejects the complicated, mechanistic approach to learning and cognitivist views that dominate the literature on decision-making in team sports that see it as being a linear process of conscious thinking limited to the individual mind. It offers an alternative, holistic view grounded in a practical example of how this might be achieved in coaching rugby union football and theorized within a CLT framework.

The importance of rugby game-related statistics to discriminate winners and losers at the elite level competitions in close and balanced games

The aim of the current study was to identify the Rugby game-related statistics that discriminated between winning and losing teams in International Rugby Board (IRB) competitions (World Cup and Six Nations) and Super Twelve Tournament (S12) in close and balanced games. A cluster analysis was conducted to establish, according to game final score differences, three different match groups. Only the close and balanced games group was selected for further analysis. An analysis of the structure coefficients (SC) obtained through a discriminant analysis allowed the identification of the most powerful game-related statistics in discriminating between winning and losing teams. The results showed that when compared, IRB and S12 close and balanced games were evident, although significant between-games differences were found for all of the analysed group clusters. This suggests that for close and balanced games a general profile may be created, which is probably specific to each team, and may indicate the strengths and weaknesses of that specific competition groups.

Pyschophenomenology and the explicitation interview for accessing subjective lived experience in sport coaching

ABSTRACT The purpose of this position paper is to promote the interest, usefulness and specificity of a coherent system that is based on psychophenomenology as a theoretical framework [Vermersch, P. (2012). Explicitation et phénoménologie. Paris: PUF], and the explicitation interview [Vermersch, P. (2009). Describing the practice of introspection. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 16(10–12), 20–57] as an appropriate and original method for studying the subjective lived experience of participants in sport situations. This original approach is associated with an epistemological posture which accords significant importance to the first-person point of view (i.e. what is appearing to a person about his own subjective lived experience in a past situation). After presenting some limitations in other phenomenological approaches and interview methods, we highlight the specificity of the theoretical background and the method of explicitation interview, for describing in detail the actions and understanding the lived experience of a person in a past and singular situation. To demonstrate the potential of this approach, we provide two specific examples of explicitation interview data from an in-match player decision-making situation and an in-game half-time speech of a coach. In concluding, we contend that psychophenomenology and the explicitation interview present new perspectives and opportunities for coach education, by developing the analysis of the subjective lived experience. This may have important implications for sport-related research and the development of coaching practice and formal coach education, through closer links to real life experiences.

Variables del juego que mejor discriminan la victoria y la derrota en los partidos igualados de rugby

El desarrollo actual y el nivel alcanzado por el rugby competitivo requiere cada vez mas altos niveles de rendimiento, necesitando de analisis detallados tanto de las situaciones de entrenamiento como de la propia competicion. El proposito de este estudio fue identificar las estadisticas que mejor representan las victorias y derrotas en los partidos de la International Rugby Board (IRB) de grupos igualados y Super 12. En total, la muestra consistio en 159 partidos de rugby, divididos en dos grupos: (i) uno que consta de 64 partidos IRB y (ii) otro formado por 95 partidos de Super 12. Las variables que se analizaron se subdividen en acciones del juego (pases realizados, sanciones impuestas, recuperaciones de pelota), y variables de resultado (ensayos, onversiones, puntapies de castigo). Los procedimientos estadisticos fueron i) analisis exploratorio inicial, ii) analisis de conglomerados y iii) el analisis discriminante que permite asociar partidos entre si, habiendo definido como criterio de agrupacion la diferencia en la puntuacion final de los partidos. Los resultados mostraron que los partidos igualados ocurrieron en mayor numero y que la mayor contribucion al resultado final de los partidos se debio a los ensayos. Los equipos que ganaron el partido igualado, defendieron mas (haciendo mas placajes), cometieron menos errores en posesion de la pelota y utilizaron mayor variedad de formas de juego (de juego a la ano y juego al pie). Entender las razones que contribuyen al exito o el fracaso de los equipos en los partidos igualados permite orientar la formacion del jugador de manera mas especifica y contribuye decisivamente a la mejora del rendimiento deportivo.