## 4 Discussion  
The current study sought to analyze the ankle kinematics in three cardinal planes during multidirectional single-leg landings in high-level netball players. The novel findings of the present study showed that (i) mean differences were present in peak landing forces but not stabilisation times and are likely dependent on leg dominance and landing direction, (ii) significant differences were evident across all planes regarding ankle kinematics as a  
Figure 8: Spearman rank correlation for ankle range of motion and peak multidirectional landing forces. Positive correlations are blue-shifted, and negative correlations are red-shifted. Panel (**A**): correlations between sagittal plane ROM and multidirectional peak forces for the non-dominant (ND) limb. Panel (**B**): correlations between sagittal plane ROM and multidirectional peak forces for the dominant (D) limb. Panel (**C**): regression for the relationship between ROM for diagonal-outside direction for the non-dominant limb (ROM NDDO) and peak forces in SJ direction (PF NDSI) (blue line \(\pm\) 95% CI (grey shaded area). Panel (**D**): regression for the relationship between ROM for diagonal-outside direction for the dominant limb (ROM DDO) and peak forces in SJ direction (PF DSI) (blue line \(\pm\) 95% CI (grey shaded area). ROM—range of motion; PF—peak force; DLO—dominant lateral outside; DSJ—dominant straight jump; DDI—dominant diagonal inside; DDO—dominant diagonal outside; DLI—dominant lateral inside; NDLO—non-dominant lateral outside; NDDI—non-dominant lateral inside; NDDO—non-dominant lateral inside. function of landing direction, and (iii) small-to-large negative correlations were present between ankle ROM and peak landing forces indicating that landing forces can be moderated by changes in sagittal plane ankle kinematics. Netball players typically perform approximately 58 explosive and multidirectional jump-landings per game, of which 42% are directed forward, 32% are vertical, and 26% are lateral [1; 6]. Moreover, approximately 65% of these landings are unilateral, which highlights the importance of ensuring adequate ability to tolerate high unilateral loads across varied directions [6; 14]. When landing on a single leg, a considerable amount of impact force needs to be adequately absorbed by the musculoskeletal system to guard against injury and allow for repeated high-intensity efforts [6; 12]. The ankle plays an especially dominant role during vertical landings, whereby it contributes 36.5% of the total work during this phase [35]. Our study showed that the kinematics of the ankle varied considerably depending on the landing direction (i.e., lateral, forward, diagonal) as well as the direction in which momentum was orientated (i.e., inside vs. outside). Our findings coincide with and extend those of [PERSON] et al. [36], who showed that ankle dorsiflexion ROM was negatively associated with vertical ground reaction force (r = \(-\)0.41, \(p\) = 0.14). Importantly, [PERSON] et al. [36] investigated only mono-directional bilateral landing, whereas we showed that such associations are likely dependent on the direction of landing. Intriguingly, [PERSON] et al. [37] concluded that ankle kinematics were not associated with bilateral landing kinetics despite observing small negative associations (r = \(-\)0.28, \(p\) = 0.08). Our findings suggest that it would be important to consider the relative contributions of each leg during landing, given that limb dominance appears to be a factor (see Figure 8). Within the context of our study, the ankle was typically exerted, and the forefoot adducted across almost all landing directions, where significant direction-specific differences were evident for both frontal (\(p\) < 0.001) and transverse (\(p\) < 0.001) plane kinematics. The presence of such direction-specific differences is likely an attempt to accommodate for the changes in landing-orientated momentum and to facilitate a better absorption of energy [2; 6; 22].