# Physical Movement Demands of Training and Matches across a Full Competition Cycle in Elite Netball
## 4 Discussion  
To our knowledge, this is the first study to present on-court movement and external workload demands across an entire season of elite netball (pre-season and in-season) using both positional and accelerometer sensors. Minor undulations across the season for all positions were observed in player load variables (see Figure 1); they align with key events across the season. Load management strategies can be identified in Figure 1, where increased weekly PlayerLoad occurs in the pre-season and precedes periods of extended recovery (e.g., Netball World Cup break), whereas weekly PlayerLoad decreases leading into the start of the season and around finals. There are clear outliers that show an acute increase in weekly load during early March, which directly corresponds to the pre-season cup, where athletes played up to four matches in three days, albeit with shortened quarters (10-min quarters) and rolling-substitutions. It appears that the shortened time per quarter resulted in the lowering of total movement demands (volume) per match, as indicated by the lower total PlayerLoad across all positional groups when compared to standard competition matches (see Table 1). However, the intensity was similar when compared to standard competition matches. While it is possible that players' intensities were higher due to a lack of residual season fatigue (being pre-season competition), they were required to play with a higher frequency than usual and less recovery time. Therefore, the use of shortened quarters and rolling substitutions, which were not standard for the regular-season competition, may be useful in practice match-play when coaches aim to restrict the volume, while maintaining or increasing the intensity of the session. The parameters of session volume presented in Table 1, such as total distance and total PlayerLoad, follow the expected pattern of midcourters accumulating higher loads than defenders or goalers, based on position-specific movement demands during match-play [7]. However, within the positional groupings there appears to be substantial spread, particularly for match-play session types. This large spread indicates that there may be clustering within groups, based on the position played for the session (match). There are distinctly different demands for some positions within their positional groupings [6; 7; 8; 21]. For example, goal attack covers the second highest distance in competition matches (5337 \(\pm\) 165 m), while goal shooters cover the least (2134 \(\pm\) 103 m), yet both are classified as goalers [7]. The raincloud plots in Figure 3 identify these separations as demonstrated by the binomial distribution  
Figure 3: PlayerLoad per minute by session type and positional group. Each point on the vertical axis represents a single session. The raincloud plot shows the raw data (points), distribution (split violin), and summary statistics (boxplots). Abbreviations: au/min = arbitrary units per minute. shape for sessions involving match-play [22]. This is most apparent for the defender and goaler groups in competition matches but can also be observed to a lesser extent during in-season practice matches. The training sessions appear to distribute intensity more evenly between athletes within each positional group. Midcourt players appear to show a more consistent range of intensities both within and between all session types. The midcourters' intensity is consistently higher than goalers or defenders across all session types (training and match-play). The different spatial constraints on a netball court imposed on each playing position likely contribute to these findings (e.g., goal attack can move in two thirds of the court, whereas goal shooters can only move within one third) [23]. [PERSON] et al. [24] investigated the differing peak PlayerLoad intensity demands in state-level netball using accelerometers, finding that for epochs larger than 30 s, intensity demands largely correspond to the athlete's zone constraints (highest peak demands for three-thirds--centre position).