ABSTRACT
Rugby league football originated in the north of England in 1895, and is currently played worldwide with the game most popular in the UK, France, Australia and New Zealand (Meir, Newton, Curtis, Fardell, & Butler, 2001). Rugby league is physically demanding (Gabbett, King & Jenkins, 2008) with time-motion analysis demonstrating that players cover an average of 8.5km during senior professional (i.e., Super League) match play with an average work-to-rest-ratio of about 1:11, demonstrating the intermittent nature of the game (Sykes, Twist, Hall & Lamb, 2009). The average energy expenditure and heart rate during a senior semi-professional Australian game have been reported as 24 kcal/min (Coutts, Reaburn & Abt, 2003) and 166 beats/min (Gabbett, Kelly, Ralph & Driscoll, 2007) respectively.
