The survey results, titled the 2024 Players' Pulse, provide insights into club performance across several key categories, highlighting which clubs excel in supporting their players.
This year's Players' Pulse focuses on:
- Health & Safety: Emphasising concussion protocols.
- Club Rankings: Featuring men's and women's industry averages and top-ranked clubs.
- Observations: Highlighting reasons players change clubs in the men's game and protected hours in the women's game.
Over 700 NRL and NRLW players participated in the survey, answering more than 100 questions covering various aspects of club operations.
The 2024 edition represents the RLPA's largest data set to date, and results have been shared publicly for the first time.
https://x.com/RLPlayers/status/1869968118543724643
Top-Ranked Clubs
The RLPA revealed the top-performing clubs in the 2024 Players' Pulse:
Clubs leading in individual categories include:
- Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs: High-performance staffing and coaching teams.
- South Sydney Rabbitohs: Nutrition, family support, and overall wellbeing.
- Penrith Panthers: Workplace environment, psychological safety, and culture.
- South Sydney Rabbitohs (Facilities): Training recovery and match-day amenities, boosted by their new headquarters at Heffron Centre.
- Penrith Panthers: Workload management, balance, and travel.
In the NRLW, top-performing clubs included the Parramatta Eels, Gold Coast Titans, and Newcastle Knights.
Lina Caccamo, RLPA's General Manager of Strategy and Innovation, explained the broader purpose behind the rankings.
“The purpose of ranking clubs is not to criticise but to collaborate and identify areas for improvement while promoting the leading clubs in our industry,” said Caccamo to RLPA Media.
“Players deserve the best employment conditions across the board, and the Players' Pulse will be crucial to achieving that and creating minimum standards.”
The Players' Pulse also provides the public with valuable insight into how top clubs operate, serving as a tool to understand and address rugby league players' evolving needs.
The survey is conducted anonymously to ensure honest feedback and advocates for a fair and thriving elite rugby league environment.
