Homeground advantage and travel fatigue are vital to Rugby Players
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Gurthro Steenkamp in photo by Gallo Images
As the 2010 Vodacom Super 14 races towards its semi-final stage, Sports Scientist Ross Tucker – through his official Powerade column – looks at the influence of home ground advantage in Super Rugby over the past few years.
According to Tucker, there is no doubt that playing at home is an advantage (not just in the Super 14 – in other sports, too) but he takes a closer look at just why; dividing it into two important sections – travel and time-zone considerations (which he discusses in this week’s column) and possible reasons for home ground advantage, which he will deal with in his next column.
A current member of Paul Treu’s successful SA Sevens management team, Tucker – in conjunction with Powerade, the official fuel to the Vodacom Super 14 players – continues to give useful insight into top-level sport and what is required to make the best players in world rugby tick.
Travel across time-zones
The travel issue is unique to Super rugby. I am not aware of another competition where teams have to travel across so many time-zones in such a short space of time. In US-sports, teams will occasionally travel across North America, a five hour flight across four time-zones, but this pales into insignificance when compared to multiple half-day flights across up to ten time zones faced by Super 14 teams. Perhaps the only valid comparison comes from Sevens rugby, where teams effectively fly around the world three times in a five month period.
If you’re counting, it turns out that the cumulative change in time zones for South African teams is about 38 time-zones (with 4 to 5 consecutive weeks spent away from home), compared to 20 time-zones and 2 to 3 consecutive weeks away for New Zealand and Australian teams. The greater time away from home is undoubtedly a factor – evidence exists that teams fare worse at the end of a long “road-trip” than at the beginning, but the issue of adapting to a new time-zone is equally crucial for performance in the first week in particular.
What exactly is the problem with travel across time-zones? Put simply, when you change time-zones, particularly more than eight, your body’s internal clock is “confused” by the changed light and dark signals, which are out of synch with its natural rhythms. The body’s natural rhythem, called the circadian rhythm, is about 25 hours, and is controlled by a small area of the hypothalamus, which sets its own internal rhythm. This internal clock is then trained by light and dark signals (day and night), which are called “zeitgebers”, or time-givers. Other zeitgebers include food availability, physical and mental activity and social influences.
For a Super 14 rugby player landing in Australia, the challenge is that their day-night cycle is basically switched around – the clock is set for night-time when the sun rises, and for day-time as it sets. But the internal clock takes much longer to adapt, hence the ‘confusion’ when first arriving in Australia or New Zealand. Sleep is difficult, because a local bed-time of 10pm corresponds to a “body clock time” of midday. Then by 2pm local time, the body is deep into its natural mid-sleep phase, which is why this feels like the most difficult time of day to do activity in. The end result is that it’s difficult to sleep, easy to wake up at the wrong time and physical performance, especially from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, is a struggle.
Flying eastward is more difficult, because the natural light cycle in the new location is exactly the opposite of what the body requires to adjust. Flying to the west, however, allows the player to synchronize much faster because natural light exposure and avoidance more easily fit with what is required to help the body adapt.
There is not a great deal that can be done to prevent this. It can be managed by forcing the adjustment to the new time-zone as early as possible. Steps can even be taken before the flight – watches should be set for the destination time-zone soon after take-off. Players often have to be forced to stay awake on flights, so that they are not sleeping during what will soon become their new day-time. And the first few days should be managed carefully so that players seek light and activity progressively earlier to try to delay the body clock in order to get it back on time. Melatonin is a drug that is believed to be effective in speeding up the synchronization if it is used at the correct time, though this is a debated issue.
Accumulated travel fatigue
An issue related to travel across time-zones is accumulated travel fatigue. This is often cited as a major disadvantage for South African teams, who accumulate roughly twice as many time zones and spend double the weeks away from home. But what does the evidence say?
It turns out that there is actually no effect of accumulated travel on our team’s performances during Super 14. This analysis was done in 2007, and it took the innovative approach of looking at how teams performed before and after their long overseas stint in the tournament. In other words, it tried to answer the question of whether this long travel period affected how teams performed. If there were some kind of accumulated travel fatigue, then teams would fare worse after their overseas leg.
What was shown is that they don’t. Over the course of nine seasons and 1,320 matches between 1996 and 2005, the points differences for the South African teams was not affected by travel. Yes, the teams performed more poorly away from home than when in South Africa – the average result at home was a win by 2 points, whereas away, it was a loss by 7 points. This is not surprising. The key is that the long travel period doesn’t change this – the average victory margin at home is two points, regardless of whether it comes before or after the travel period.
As an interesting side note, during this period (1996 to 2005), the Blue Bulls’ average HOME result was a narrow win by two points. Since 2007, Loftus has become a fortress where the Bulls hardly ever lose, and so their more recent history would change this average considerably. It shows how times have changed. And with the Stormers and the Sharks also enjoying stronger Super 14 seasons in the last three years, the picture now is much rosier when it comes to home-ground performances for SA teams.
In the next column, we’ll look more closely at home-ground advantage, of which travel across time-zones is only one factor. Crowd factors, referee interpretations, player psychology and familiarity with the venue all feature as reasons why there is no place like home for sportsmen and women.
Ends
*Powerade Preservative Free Sports Drink is only available in ready-to-drink. Coca-Cola, Powerade and the P device are trademarks of The Coca-Cola Company © 2010
• Issued by Powerade, official fuel to the Vodacom Super 14 players.
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