Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries in Australian Rules Football: Incidence, Prevention and Return to Play Outcomes by Webster KE, Hewett TE, Feller JA

“…Whilst an ACL injury does not mean the end of a player’s career in Australian football, it certainly presents a significant challenge in terms of return to preinjury levels of form and high rates of secondary and tertiary ACL injury are also a significant concern.Keywords: Australian football, knee injury, ACL, injury prevalence, return to play…”
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Examining the Eye Movement Behaviors Associated With Skilled Decision-Making by Elite Australian Rules Football Players by Lael Kassem, Lael Kassem, Clare MacMahon, John Quinn, John Quinn, Sera Dogramaci, Bonnie Pang, Bonnie Pang, Kylie A. Steel, Kylie A. Steel

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Comparing possession characteristics between 12, 15 and 18 a side games in junior Australian footballers by Zac Cross, Shane Pill, Kym Williams

“…The purpose of this investigation was to compare the effects of altering the number of players during ‘small sided games’ on the possession characteristics within a youth under10 football setting. Two modified ‘small sided game’ versions of 12 a side and 15 a side in accordance to the Australian Football League (AFL) junior match policy were used to compare against the 18 a side game used in a junior football association. …”
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Injury prevention for women and girls playing Australian Football: programme cocreation, dissemination and early adopter coach feedback by Christian J Barton, Kay M Crossley, Brooke E Patterson, Sallie M Cowan, Alex Donaldson, Andrea M Bruder, Andrea B Mosler, Melissa J Haberfield, Nicole Livingstone, Julia Lawrence, David Rath

“…All Australian Football-registered coaches of women’s/girls’ teams were sent a postseason survey to determine initial awareness, adoption and implementation (steps 5 and 6). …”
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Characterising lower-body musculoskeletal morphology and whole-body composition of elite female and male Australian Football players by Callum J. McCaskie, Marc Sim, Robert U. Newton, Jarryd Heasman, Brent Rogalski, Nicolas H. Hart

“…Abstract Background Physical demands and injury rates differ between elite female and male Australian Football (AF) players. To improve understanding of contributing physical factors to these differences, the purpose of this study was to investigate lower-body morphology and whole-body composition of elite footballers competing in the Australian Football League (AFL) and Australian Football League Women’s (AFLW). …”
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Physical and Anthropometric Characteristics Do Not Differ According to Birth Year Quartile in High-Level Junior Australian Football Players by Paul Larkin, Carl T. Woods, Jade Haycraft, David B. Pyne

“…The aim of this study was to explore differences in the physical fitness and anthropometric profiles between birth year quartiles of players attending the Australian Football League (AFL) National Draft Combine. …”
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Creating Prep to Play PRO for women playing elite Australian football: A how-to guide for developing injury-prevention programs by Andrea M. Bruder, Alex Donaldson, Andrea B. Mosler, Brooke E. Patterson, Melissa Haberfield, Benjamin F. Mentiplay, Patrick Clifton, Nicole D. Livingstone, OAM, Kay M. Crossley

“…Women playing in the elite Australian Football League for Women are at high risk of serious knee injuries, and no specific injury-prevention program exists. …”
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What is the Prevalence of General Anxiety Disorder and Depression Symptoms in Semi-elite Australian Football Players: A Cross-Sectional Study by Anthony Henderson, Sarah Ann Harris, Troy Kirkham, Jonathon Charlesworth, Myles Calder Murphy

“…A cross-sectional epidemiological study including 369 semi-elite Western Australian Football League (WAFL) players from the Men and Women’s 2022 season (n = 337 men, 91%) was conducted. …”
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Session Availability as a Result of Prior Injury Impacts the Risk of Subsequent Non-contact Lower Limb Injury in Elite Male Australian Footballers by Joshua D. Ruddy, Samuel Pietsch, Nirav Maniar, Stuart J. Cormack, Ryan G. Timmins, Morgan D. Williams, David L. Carey, David A. Opar

“…Accordingly, this study investigated whether session availability, a surrogate marker of prior injury, influenced the risk of subsequent non-contact lower limb injury in Australian footballers. Data were collected from 62 male elite Australian footballers throughout the 2015, 2016, and 2017 Australian Football League seasons. …”
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Life Skill Development and Transfer beyond Sport by Agnew Deborah, Jackson Kathryn, Pill Shane, Edwards Christine

“…The aim of this research was to investigate the current life skills education programs offered by the Australian Football League (AFL) for elite footballers in order to determine the retention of life skill knowledge and transfer beyond sport. …”
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Comparison of a sports-hydration drink containing high amylose starch with usual hydration practice in Australian rules footballers during intense summer training by Sinead Mary O’Connell, Richard John Woodman, Ian Lewis Brown, David Julian Vincent, Henry Joseph Binder, Balakrishnan Siddartha Ramakrishna, Graeme Paul Young

“…This study therefore compared, in elite Australian Football League (AFL) players at the height of outdoor summer training, a novel dual-action sports oral rehydration strategy that contained HAMS as well as glucose, to their usual rehydration practices (Control). …”
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Including a Technical Factor with Physical and In-Game Movement Factors Improves Model Sensitivity When Evaluating Draft Outcome in Elite-Junior Australian Rules Football by Jacob Jennings, Daniel Wundersitz, Courtney Sullivan, Stephen Cousins, Michael Kingsley

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Editorial: Fatigue and Recovery in Football by Neil Clarke, Mark Noon

“…The football codes (soccer, American football, Australian rules football, rugby league, and union and Gaelic football) are intermittent team sports with bouts of high-intensity activity interspersed with low-intensity activities or rest [...]…”
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Evaluation of an injury prevention programme (Prep-to-Play) in women and girls playing Australian Football: design of a pragmatic, type III, hybrid implementation-effectiveness, st...

“…Introduction Due to the increase in participation and risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries and concussion in women’s Australian Football, an injury prevention programme (Prep-to-Play) was codesigned with consumers (eg, coaches, players) and stakeholders (eg, the Australian Football League). …”
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Hormonal Contraceptive Use in Football Codes in Australia by Anthea C. Clarke, Georgie Bruinvels, Georgie Bruinvels, Ross Julian, Ross Julian, Pip Inge, Charles R. Pedlar, Charles R. Pedlar, Charles R. Pedlar, Andrew D. Govus

“…This study involved a subset of data collected as part of a larger questionnaire investigating menstrual cycle function, hormonal contraception use, and the interaction with training load volume and perceived performance in elite female football code athletes. A total of 177 participants completed the questionnaire across three football codes within Australia (rugby league, rugby union/sevens, Australian football). …”
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Sports Injuries in the Australian Regular Army by Robin Orr, Ben Schram, Rodney Pope

“…Soccer presented with the greatest number of injuries (23.3%), followed by rugby union/league (22.9%), touch football (18.6%), Australian rules football (12.0%), and basketball/netball (11.9%). …”
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There Is Little Difference in the Peak Movement Demands of Professional and Semi-Professional Rugby League Competition by Rich D. Johnston, Rich D. Johnston, Paul Devlin, Jarrod A. Wade, Grant M. Duthie

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Positional and temporal differences in peak match running demands of elite football by Bradley Thoseby, Andrew D. Govus, Anthea Clarke, Kane J. Middleton, Ben Dascombe

“…A total of 508 GPS files were collected from 44 players, across 68 matches of the Australian A-League. GPS files were split into the 1st and 2nd half, with the peak running demands of each half quantified across 10 moving average durations (1–10 min) for three measures of running performance (total distance, high-speed distance [> 19.8 km·h −1 ] and average acceleration). …”
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Comparison of injury incidences between football teams playing in different climatic regions by Orchard JW, Waldén M, Hägglund M, Orchard JJ, Chivers I, Seward H, Ekstr, J

“…John W Orchard,1 Markus Waldén,2 Martin Hägglund,3 Jessica J Orchard,1 Ian Chivers,4 Hugh Seward,5 Jan Ekstrand21School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia; 2Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Division of Community Medicine, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden; 3Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Division of Physiotherapy, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden; 4Native Seeds, Cheltenham, VIC, Australia; 5Australian Football League Medical Officers Association, Melbourne, VIC, AustraliaAbstract: Australian Football League (AFL) teams in northern (warmer) areas generally have higher rates of injury than those in southern (cooler) areas. …”
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Implementing health policies in Australian junior sports clubs: an RCT by Tara Clinton-McHarg, Sharleen Gonzalez, Sharin Milner, Shauna Sherker, Melanie Kingsland, Christophe Lecathelinais, Alix Hall, Chris Doran, John Wiggers, Luke Wolfenden

“…Methods A cluster randomised trial was conducted with eight football leagues. Fourty-one junior football clubs belonging to four leagues in the intervention group received support (e.g. physical resources, recognition and rewards, systems and prompts) to implement 16 policies and practices that targeted child exposure to alcohol, tobacco, healthy food and beverages, and participation in physical activity. …”
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