Physical fitness of elite women's rugby union players over a ...

CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 INTRODUCTION
Rugby is a collision-based sport, which historically has been a male preserve. Success in the
sport is extremely reliant upon the player’s possessing an adequate level of strength, power,
speed, endurance and as well as technical and tactical acumen. With the rapid growth in
women’s rugby, this chapter first explores the history of women’s rugby and its competitive
development in South Africa. The demands of rugby competition are described in terms of
activity patterns so as to gain insight into the positional demands in rugby union. Thereafter,
specific physical fitness characteristics are described in this chapter, which have shown to
influence sporting performance. Finally, season changes in fitness over the course of the
season as well as monitoring methodology used during training will be discussed.
2.2 WOMEN’S RUGBY UNION
South Africa is a country whereby rugby has a following of about ten million in a population
of 44 million and played by both men and women at club, provincial and national level (SA
Rugby, n.d.). In the 1990’s, women’s rugby in South Africa emerged in Johannesburg and
Pretoria, with when it was played predominately by middle class females who had enough
time and resources to establish teams. These players encountered gender stereotypes on a
regular basis from some rugby men, although rugby in South Africa was founded on the
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