PURPOSE: Tackle coaching forms a cornerstone of training in rugby and is designed to enhance performance and mitigate tackle injury. The player voice can help uncover the psychosocial determinants (societal, organisational, and individual factors) that shape performance in women’s contact sport. This qualitative study used a grounded theory approach to capture the experiences of tackle performance in senior women’s rugby union.

METHODS: Current women’s rugby union players (n = 21), with at least 1-year senior level experience, from Europe, Africa and North America participated in this study. Players were aged between 20-48 years and came from diverse backgrounds and sporting systems in the UK, Ireland, France, Canada and South Africa. The playing experiences of participants ranged from 12 months to 20 years from club to elite international level. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed in line with grounded theory coding procedures.

RESULTS: Tackling was considered a highly complex skill that requires technical, tactical, physical and psychological proficiency to execute safely and effectively. Experiences of tackle performance that shaped women's sense of preparedness ranged from constraining to empowering and were embedded across multiple contexts from the microlevel to the macrolevel. Tackle performance was influenced by gendered factors perpetuated by relations, coaching practices and structures within the playing context of women’s rugby union. Participants expected and accepted the bare minimum as the price that they had to pay for inclusion in rugby.

CONCLUSION: Participants' experiences of tackle performance were entangled in inequitable club structures, constraining coaching practices and performance cultures where men's rugby is the norm. Empowering tackle performance in women's rugby union must be bespoke to the given context and the needs of women players. By adopting a nuanced, collective approach that reflects the complexity of the skill of tackling and accounts for the performance context and preferences of women’s rugby players we will be better placed to support tackle performance in women’s rugby. Grounded in the voices of women, we have provided practical recommendations for key stakeholders to better support tackle performance in women’s rugby.

Disclosures: KD is a PhD candidate supported by Irish Research Council, Ireland (grant number GOIPG/2020/1220). FW is an Deputy Editor for the British Journal of Sports Medicine.