title: Identifying Talent in Youth Sport: A Novel Methodology Using Higher-Dimensional Analysis.
abstract: Prediction of adult performance from early age talent identification in sport remains difficult. Talent identification research has generally been performed using univariate analysis, which ignores multivariate relationships. To address this issue, this study used a novel higher-dimensional model to orthogonalize multivariate anthropometric and fitness data from junior rugby league players, with the aim of differentiating future career attainment. Anthropometric and fitness data from 257 Under-15 rugby league players was collected. Players were grouped retrospectively according to their future career attainment (i.e., amateur, academy, professional). Players were blindly and randomly divided into an exploratory (n = 165) and validation dataset (n = 92). The exploratory dataset was used to develop and optimize a novel higher-dimensional model, which combined singular value decomposition (SVD) with receiver operating characteristic analysis. Once optimized, the model was tested using the validation dataset. SVD analysis revealed 60 m sprint and agility 505 performance were the most influential characteristics in distinguishing future professional players from amateur and academy players. The exploratory dataset model was able to distinguish between future amateur and professional players with a high degree of accuracy (sensitivity = 85.7%, specificity = 71.1%; p<0.001), although it could not distinguish between future professional and academy players. The validation dataset model was able to distinguish future professionals from the rest with reasonable accuracy (sensitivity = 83.3%, specificity = 63.8%; p = 0.003). Through the use of SVD analysis it was possible to objectively identify criteria to distinguish future career attainment with a sensitivity over 80% using anthropometric and fitness data alone. As such, this suggests that SVD analysis may be a useful analysis tool for research and practice within talent identification.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Sport, Physical Activity and Leisure, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Till
authors.affiliation: Institute for Sport, Physical Activity and Leisure, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Ben L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: Discipline of Exercise & Sport Science, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cobley
authors.affiliation: Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Morley
authors.affiliation: Institute for Sport, Physical Activity and Leisure, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: O'Hara
authors.affiliation: Sports Coach UK, Leeds, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chapman
authors.affiliation: Leeds Trinity University, Leeds, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Carlton
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cooke
authors.affiliation: Institute for Sport, Physical Activity and Leisure, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom.|Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center, Department of Neurology, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, United States of America.
authors.forename: Clive B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Beggs
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001076:Aptitude; D005538:Football; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D013663:Teaching