Variation of match-play high-speed running metrics of professional rugby league players using different threshold methods

Rugby league practitioners aim to quantify the running demands of match-play, with high-speed running (HSR) perceived important. Rugby league matches are complex with external load metrics specific to the contextual factors of match-play resulting in metrics like HSR having high variability between matches. Practitioners apply various methods to quantify HSR, with absolute and individualised methods anchored to speed and fitness properties the most common. However, it is unknown whether substituting an absolute threshold for an individualised method would result in HSR between matches having lower variability. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine whether absolute or individualised HSR thresholds resulted in lower match-to-match variability during a professional rugby league season. Forty-five 1 st team rugby league players competing in the European Super League participated. Global positioning system data was collected from twenty-seven matches with HSR calculated using: distance >5.5 m·s −1 , >MAS 5-min, >MAS corrected and >65% max sprint speed (MSS). Mean values displayed HSR for the whole team to be the highest for MAS 5 min (682 ± 83 m), followed by MAS corrected (466 ± 63 m), 5.5 m·s −1 (262 ± 52 m) and 65% MSS (196 ± 39 m). Coefficient of variation presented 65% MSS (20.0%) and 5.5m·s −1 (19.6%) to have the highest variability for the whole team, with MAS 5-min (12.2%) and MAS corrected (13.2%) methods having the lowest variability. Ultimately, individualising HSR using MAS methods results in lower variability for the whole team and different playing positions and highlights variability of HSR increases with threshold speed.