2000 Pre-Olympic Congress

ogo.gif (1965 bytes) 2000 Pre-Olympic Congress
Sports Medicine and Physical Education
International Congress on Sport Science

7-13 September - Brisbane, Australia 2000

Comparison of size and performance characteristics of indigenous and non-indigenous Australian Football League players at the Northern Territory Institute of Sport

R. J. Wood*, J. F. Marsden & J. P. Finn
Northern Territory Institute of Sport, Australia

The stereotypical indigenous Australian Football League (AFL) player is "lithe, fast and skilful" (Walker, 1992). However, there appears to be no scientific research to support such perceptions. This study compared initial field test results of indigenous and non-indigenous Northern Territory Institute of Sport (NTIS) AFL squad players from 1997-2000.

Indigenous players were significantly shorter and tended to be lighter. They were also significantly faster over 40m, due to better acceleration, which supports the stereotype. Other measures of anaerobic and aerobic power were not different (see Table). Further analysis showed the six regional based indigenous players achieved lower scores of fitness than their city based counterparts.

Table: Comparative test results (mean ± sd) for indigenous (n=26) and non-indigenous (n=28) AFL players from the NTIS squads of 1997-2000.

non-indigenous indigenous

Age (years) 16.5 ± 0.9 16.5 ±1.2

Height (cm) 181.3 ± 6.5 177.3 ±5.7 *

Mass (kg) 73.2 ± 7.0 69.3 ± 7.9

Vertical Jump (cm) 60.6 ± 4.1 61.6 ± 6.9

10m sprint time (sec) 1.78 ±0.09 1.72 ± 0.09*

40m sprint time (sec) 5.45 ±0.16 5.28 ± 0.19 *

20-40m average speed (m/sec) 8.38 ± 0.24 8.57 ± 0.52

Multistage Fitness Test (shuttles) 92.9 ± 14.2 93.8 ± 17.5

* significantly different from non-indigenous (p<0.05)

Analysis of playing positions showed a greater representation of indigenous players along the centreline, while there were more non-indigenous players in key end field positions, the ruck and along the half lines. Positional segregation has also been found in Rugby League (Hallinan, 1991). The positional differences may relate to the body size requirements for each position. While skill and agility were not measured, the smaller and lighter indigenous players may require greater agility and skill levels to compete with larger non-indigenous players. Further research on the physiological and skill levels of each group is required to further investigate the stereotype.