The Impact of the Relative Age Effect and Educational Pathways on Talent ID

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The Impact of the Relative Age Effect and
Educational Pathways on Talent ID
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Relative Age Effect?

• The Relative Age Effect
• - the subtle favoring of more physically
  mature children when children are grouped
  together by age for sport.
• - Its easy to forget whos the youngest or
  the oldest in the group
• - coaches sometimes mistake physical
  maturity for greater ability.
• Paula Jardine University of Bath
• The Relative Age Effect, or as it is sometimes
  called the Age Bias Effect, is
• when elite youth squads tend to be filled by
  players born in the early part
• of the selection year
• Coté - Early exposure to essential resources is
  critical. The Relative Age Effect

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In Groups of 4

• Have you experienced the RAE in Talent ID in your
  schools, clubs or Development Squads?
• Has it a positive/negative influence on long term
  development?
• Does it matter in the long run?

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Relative Age Effects
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Relative Age Effects
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Relative Age Effects
Major League Baseball (American Data)
Cote, MacDonald, Baker Abernethy (2006) JSS
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Relative Age Effects In Sports
Australian Data
Abernethy Farrow (2005) ISSP
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• Facts
• Half the teams in the tournament below had no
  players at all born in November or December. 
• The eventual winners of that tournament Mexico
  had a squad entirely made up of players born
  between January and July! (67 were born in the
  first half of the selection year 1988)

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Facts It is also timely to point out that as
players age the effects of the Relative Age
Effect disappear as displayed by fig 1.2 which
shows the distribution of birth months for
players from the FIFA 2006 World Cup in Germany.
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Relative Age Implications

• Older more physically developed players are more
  likely to be selected therefore exposed to a
  high performance environment - Double
  Advantage
• Dropout - Younger less developed players arent
  selected miss out on high performance inputs
• Dropout (Barnsley Thompson 1988 Helsen et al.,
  1998)
• Impact on self-perceptions, self-appraisals and
  motivation
• Self-esteem (Barnsley et al., 2004)
• School Attendance (Carroll, 1992 Cobley et al.,
  in press)

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Relative Age Theory

• Gaelic Relative Elite Age Theory - some Gaelic
  players may miss out on a spot at the top level.
  This is simply due to the month that they are
  born on. Development difference greatest at
  U14/U16.
• Even when groupings are limited to 1 year
  categories, e.g. U15 U16 U17 U18, development
  differences can be great. In such cases players
  born in January and December will have almost a
  year difference in their age.
• Ulster Elite Squads U16 7 times more people
  born in first 3 months than last 3
• 3 out of 4 born in first half of the year

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Age factored performance

• Taking the elite squad and testing their
  performance in several areas the result was that
  the older players outweighed the younger always
  proving age is a factor.
• Question Do we take a short term view of what is
  rather than what might be???

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Antrim Football Development Squads
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Ulster Hurling Development Squads
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Donegal U-18 Hurling 2010
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Colaisti Innis Eoghain
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Omagh CBS Squads 2011
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St Patricks Dungannon Squads 2011
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Ladies U-15 Elite Camps
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Tyrone U-21s 2011
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Senior County Ladies
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Senior Inter-County Men
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Discussion Points

• There can never be a level playing field simply
  because everyone develops at their own rate and
  someone will always be younger or less developed
  than someone else until they reach senior
  football.
• A possible compromise is to have a yearly
  rotation in selection periods and this way at
  some stage everyone will have a higher relative
  age.
• Another possibility is to change the mentality of
  youth coaches to look more at the technical
  mindset aspects rather than physical aspects of a
  player. This again may prove difficult as in the
  real world all coaches are judged by their
  results on the field not on their developmental
  results(win by Friday approach) 
• Another possibility at representative level is to
  pick two or bigger squads so that there are more
  options then to pick players purely with an eye
  to the future who can be exposed to the
  different, hopefully improved, standard of
  coaching.
• Group players with similar physical attributes

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Educational Pathways Discuss

• Educational pathways taken by senior county
  players?
• Is the player with the lunch box under their
  arm a thing of the past?
• Do players need to attend 3rd Level Education to
  progress to senior county?
• Do the majority of inter-county players follow
  the traditional route Devel. Squads, Minor,
  U-21?

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Senior Inter-County Players
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Pathways to Senior County
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Are our structures delivering?

• Ulster Minor All-Ireland Titles
• 1954-1964 None
• 1965-1975 2 Derry Tyrone
• 1976-1986 2 Down Derry
• 1987-1997 2 Down Derry
• 1998-2009 8 Tyrone x4, Down x2, Derry/Armagh
  x1

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Ulster All-Ireland Minor Success
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The problem with Talent ID
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References

• PPT A Multilevel Analysis of Youth Sport
  Coaching Jean Coté
• Article The Relative Age Effect in Youth Soccer
  Players from Spain David Gutierrez Del Campo
• PPT Birth date, Relative Age Athlete
  Development Joe Baker
• Article Relative Age Theory Paula Jardine
• PPT What Studies of Elite Athletes tell us about
  promoting long-term development Joe Baker