Development and approbation of innovative methodology for controlling individual defensive actions performed by qualified women's rugby sevens players

The innovative methodology of registration and analysis of tactical and technical defensive actions performed by qualified women’s rugby sevens players under game conditions has been developed to optimize pedagogical management of their competitive activity on the basis of their differentiation. As opposed to its foreign counterparts, this methodology allows both to record quantitative indicators of actions performed by players and to estimate an effectiveness level of a defense performance during a game. At the same time it helps to improve individual differentiation of rugby sevens players’ defensive actions as well as their tactical usefulness. Several leading domestic coaches and athletes specializing in rugby sevens have been invited as experts to assess the feasibility of this methodology. The methodology has been tested during major international and Russian women’s rugby sevens tournaments. It was determined that when qualified women’s rugby sevens players performed defensive actions they showed the significant differences in their effectiveness indicators, the level of making tactical decisions, the adequacy of their responses to opponents’ actions depending on unexpectedly changing game situations in the dynamics of the competition...