## 4 Discussion
Whether the presence of lower limb injuries would substantially amplify the differences in TTS as a function of landing limb and/or direction for netball players would certainly require further research. Despite the preliminary findings of the present study, the TTS data have shown utility as a potential diagnostic tool to evaluate those athletes with the likelihood to have functionally unstable ankles and should be considered for safe return-to-play of netball players [40]. However, the sensitivity and specificity of TTS for such purposes requires further investigation. Research has shown that inversion ankle sprains tend to dominate the injury spectrum in netball [10; 22]. The greater ankle inversion angle coupled with longer TTS in lateral landings compared to forward landings can potentially cause greater loads on muscles and ligaments that resist ankle inversion [16; 22]. In the present study, participants presented with ankle version and forefoot adduction upon landing, which may imply that the participants of the current study land with a more pronated foot posture, further implying that athletes may potentially be at a lesser risk of sustaining non-contact lateral ankle sprains. However, whether such results transfer to practice and match-play settings would require further research as well as more advanced technologies capable of capturing the biomechanics of in-situ performances. A decrease in ankle ROM (e.g., through the use of a brace) has been shown to require compensatory ROM by the knee and hip joints during various landing tasks, thereby affecting the landing technique but not landing GRF [36; 37; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47]. However, the findings of the present study do show that changes in sagittal plane ankle kinematics during multidirectional landings are negatively associated with peak landing forces to varying yet substantial degrees (see Figure 8C,D). The present results are also supported by those of [PERSON] et al. [16], who showed that the landing direction significantly influences the peak angles of an ankle during landing in male volleyball and basketball players. Although the findings presented here may suggest that greater ankle ROM is imperative for reducing peak landing forces during multidirectional single-leg landings, further research is required to determine whether there is carry-over to the field setting during match-play and whether such strategies mitigate non-contact injury risks. Moreover, the extent to which the relationship between ankle kinematics and landing kinetics can be moderated by various interventions would also require further research. While the present study did not investigate participants with ankle-specific injuries, it is important to note the mechanisms associated with injury are multifactorial [3; 11]. Although there are strengths identified in conducting the present study, limitations must also be acknowledged. The present study was conducted specifically on female netball players as the vulnerable population to an ankle injury. However, future studies should consider conducting the same research on male netball players to investigate if they exhibit similar ankle kinematics upon landing. The sample size of the participants was small and should be replicated with a larger number of high-level participants. Also, the results of the current study should not be generalised to other sports and can only apply to high-level netball players as the needs at different levels of play may depend on game demands, and specific adaptations may be required. Therefore, we recommend that the results of the present study should be used as a guideline to coaches and conditioning staff when designing training programs (to consider including multidirectional training in other planes of motion as an ankle is a multiplane joint) and when conducting pre-season testing battery. It is also important to note that, to make specific inferences about landing limb and direction, our study was highly controlled in a laboratory environment.