Abstract

This study compared expert, intermediate and novice participants on their ability to recall and anticipate structured rugby union line-out patterns. The recall task required participants to recall the location of each player in a line-out formation at a time point when the pattern was considered structured. The anticipation task required participants to predict the final location of each player in the line-out and identify which player would catch the ball. Strong expertise effects were found with the expert rugby players able to recall and anticipate structured patterns of play with significantly greater accuracy than the lesser skilled participants. Multiple regressions revealed that the pattern recall skill accounted for 40 percent of the variance in anticipatory skill. Discussion centres on the robustness of this relationship when the relative skill level of the performers, the nature of the patterns presented, and the experimental task used are collectively considered. Verf.-Referat