A Case Against the Bronco

Hi again friends, this piece is going to be a bit niche towards the rugby folk, so I won’t be offended if you close out and pass right by. Those that stick around (not rugby fanatics or fans like me) hopefully I can learn ya a thing or two. As I mentioned, this directed at the rugby universe, if you’re new to following me, welcome and be prepared to hear about this sport, like a silly amount.
 
To the point of today’s posting, why the heck is the rugby universe obsessed with the Bronco drill/test? Those not in the know, a Bronco is a fitness test the rugby universe is in LOOOOVE with, I can't emphasize that point enough. It requires running from the goal line on a rugby pitch, to the 22-meter line and back, the near 10-meter line and back, the far 10-meter line and back, 5 times with no rest (see field graphic below) for time. I am going to upset someone with this and without getting into scientific specifics, because I’ll be honest, I’m still not 100% sure I get the scientific defense. From a logistic sense it doesn’t add up though.

A good time for this test is considered 5-6 minutes or about. In rugby it is very rare that you have a passage of play lasting longer than a minute, so even if the justification was to “over prepare”, 5 minutes is over over doing it. Did I mention there’s usually 15 players on the field so 1 player having to be active (running/working) for that ENTIRE minute or so is also very unlikely.
 
The other generic defense chucked out there is that players need to have long lasting lungs. The games are 80 minutes, split in two 40-minute halves, not sure how 5 minutes equals 40. If you’re saying you need to work on that steady state cardio base, wonderful, we can talk about zone 2 bike sessions and such instead of this.
 
For me, and most of my high schoolers have heard this, the sport is separated into two areas for fitness. Sprinting and being able to repeat sprints over and over, yes with rest and the long steady state I mentioned before. There’s not a ton of in-between shit needed, and I’m not convinced makes sense to try to run flat out for 5 minutes, even with the change of direction. Don’t kid yourself either, you aren’t sprinting for that long, it’s just running.
 
I could justify doing one round of a bronco, maybe two with a bit of rest between, not five though. With that idea, I’d go with a yo-yo or beep test over this still. It’s repeated sprints and the rest does get less and less, but it’s still sprints more than just running. I personally bin all testing at the high school level because there are about 300 other things to focus on and the bronco, the beep or any other test isn’t going to tell me how good of a player our kids are. I’ll let their skill set do the talking and when we get to the daily fitness drills, I’ll be able to tell who can keep up and who has issues.

Last note, why are we SO obsessed with tests in general for sports? There's a league here in the U.S. that puts their future players through a litany of tests before they enter said league and it's still a terrible predictor for success. Spoiler alert, some people are horrible test takers, that's a fact of life. It does not mean they can't do the job asked of them or perform tasks required for their career, some brains are just wired different.

I've gone a bit off topic, but point is, Bronco test probably needs to be put under more scrutiny and no longer be just accepted as king of the fitness tests in rugby. If you can't explain why in simple terms, it's probably not needed. That's all for today friends, thanks very much for reading and have yourself a week.