Mental skills of South African male high school rugby players

Abstract

Developed in the United Kingdom, the Bull’s Mental Skills Questionnaire (BMSQ) is now being used within South Africa in a range of contexts including sport and exercise psychology settings. The BMSQ is comprised of seven mental skill subscales: imagery ability, mental preparation, self-confidence, anxiety and worry management, concentration ability, relaxation ability and motivation. It produces individual subscale scores, which collectively result in a total mental skills score. South African sport norms are needed for this measure. The aim of this study was to establish preliminary South African high school rugby norms for the BMSQ. The sample consisted of 152 male high school rugby players from two schools in the Ethekwini region. Preliminary norms are presented in the form of means and standard deviations. Results are compared with those of previous South African studies on the BMSQ, involving similar age groups. Findings indicate that high school rugby players’ mental skills scores, except for mental preparation and concentration ability, are lower compared to non-playing rugby samples of similar age range. This highlights the need for mental skills training for rugby players.