The Validity of Automated Tackle Detection in Women's Rugby League

Author(s)
Cummins, Cloe
Charlton, Glen
Naughton, Mitchell
Jones, Ben
Minahan, Claire
Murphy, Aron
Publication Date
2022-07
Abstract
Cummins, C, Charlton, G, Naughton, M, Jones, B, Minahan, C, and Murphy, A. The validity of automated tackle detection in women's rugby league. <i>J Strength Cond Res</i> XX(X): 000-000, 2020 -- This study assessed the validity of microtechnology devices to automatically detect and differentiate tackles in elite women's rugby league match-play. Elite female players (<i>n</i> = 17) wore a microtechnology device (OptimEye S5 device; Catapult Group International) during a representative match, which involved a total of 512 tackles of which 365 were defensive and 147 were attacking. Tackles automatically detected by Catapult's tackle detection algorithm and video-coded tackles were time synchronized. True positive, false negative and false positive events were utilized to calculate sensitivity (i.e., when a tackle occurred, did the algorithm correctly detect this event) and precision (i.e., when the algorithm reported a tackle, was this a true event based on video-coding). Of the 512 video-derived attacking and defensive tackle events, the algorithm was able to detect 389 tackles. The algorithm also produced 81 false positives and 123 false negatives. As such when a tackle occurred, the algorithm correctly identified 76.0% of these events. When the algorithm reported that a tackle occurred, this was an actual event in 82.8% of circumstances. Across all players, the algorithm was more sensitive to the detection of an attacking event (sensitivity: 78.2%) as opposed to a defensive event (sensitivity: 75.1%). The sensitivity and precision of the algorithm was higher for forwards (sensitivity: 81.8%; precision: 92.1%) when compared with backs (sensitivity: 64.5%; precision: 66.1%). Given that understanding the tackle demands of rugby league is imperative from both an injury-prevention and physical-conditioning perspective there is an opportunity to develop a specific algorithm for the detection of tackles within women's rugby league.
Citation
Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 36(7), p. 1951-1955
ISSN
1533-4287
1064-8011
Pubmed ID
32956263
Link
Language
en
Publisher
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Title
The Validity of Automated Tackle Detection in Women's Rugby League
Type of document
Journal Article
Entity Type
Publication

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