In Australian football, agility is important for an attacker to evade defenders and maintain possession of the ball, while for defenders it is important to be in a position to perform a tackle or at least place pressure on the ball carrier. Agility performance is determined by many factors such as technique and the strength qualities of the involved muscles. More recently it has been accepted that perceptual and decision making factors also influence agility performance (6, 9). For example, agility tests involving reacting to a simulated attacker have been shown to discriminate between higher and lower level Australian Rules football players (2, 7, 11). Despite this, there is a paucity of research specifically concerning perceptual skill in agility in Australian football. Therefore the purpose of this study was to determine if elite Australian football players possessed superior defensive perceptual agility skill to elite junior players. The results of this investigation can inform strength and conditioning coaches of the relative importance of cognitive skill for agility performance and has implications for the design of training programs.
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