The primary purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between strength, power and running speed among professional and semi-professional rugby league players. One hundred and twenty one rugby league players with a mean (SD) age of 22 (3.1) years volunteered for participation in this study. All players were registered with one rugby league club and played at either the National Rugby League (NRL) or Premier League (PL) level during the 2000, 2001 or 2002 rugby league seasons. The characteristics examined were vertical jump, standing long jump, 10-40 m running speed and strength (3RM parallel squat, power clean). Pearson product-moment correlations were used to determine relationships between sprint performance and strength and jump power performance characteristics. The results suggest that while absolute 3RM parallel squat strength related (r = -0.26) to 10 m sprint performance no measures of absolute 3RM squat or power clean related to 20 m, 30 m or 40 m sprint performance, however all measures relative to body weight significantly correlated to 10 m, 20 m 30 m and 40 m sprint performance and ranged from (r = -0.46 to r = -0.61). All measure of explosive power related to 10 m, 20 m, 30 m and 40 m sprint performance and ranged from (r = 0.58 to r = -0.78) and related most closely to 30 m and 40 m sprint performance. This research suggests that while measures of strength and power relate to 10 m, 20 m, 30 m and 40 m sprint ability among rugby league players there are some variations in the factors that relate to sprint performance. It is recommended that concentric absolute strength, relative strength and explosive power are relevant to acceleration performance among rugby league players, while explosive power and stretch shortening cycle exercises may be more appropriate for maximum velocity performance.
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