The role of biological maturity in sport psychological skills of young rugby players : an explorative investigation : sports psychology

The aims of this explorative study was to identify differences and possible changes in sport psychological skill levels of potentially talented rugby players with different maturity status over a two year period. The sport psychological skills were assessed using the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory-28 (ACSI-28). Eighteen rugby players (N=18) were classified into early developers (ED) (n = 4), average developers (AD) (n = 13) and late developers (LD) (n = 1), and were tested yearly from 2003 to 2005. Results showed that the ED attained borderline significantly better values than the AD in goal-setting and mental preparation (p = 0.07), as well as confidence and achievement motivation (p = 0.09) during 2003, whilst these differences were no longer evident in 2005. A significant improvement was observed in goal-setting and mental preparation (p = 0.007) among AD from 2003 to 2005. Although AD attained lower values in 2003 for coachability than ED, they showed significant improvements from 2003 to 2005 (p = 0.063), while ED did not change. The general coping skills score of ED remained unchanged over the two year period, while AD showed a significant increase (p = 0.004). From these results it was concluded that certain changes occurred in the sport psychological skill levels of ED and AD. Furthermore ED showed a bigger advantage at a younger age than AD regarding confidence, but that maturation contributed to the observed change in the confidence levels among AD.