Ep 1: Nicole Spriggs - Tackling rugby safety for young women
Nicole Spriggs' research is set to make a big impact on women’s rugby.
For her PhD, Nicole’s been investigating how a season of rugby affects the brain health of high-school female players, a group that’s long been overlooked in sports science.
Using smart mouthguards, MRI scans and cognitive testing, Nicole tracked collisions, technique and brain function across a season, with the aim of better understanding the risks and improving safety through changes to tackle technique and training.
Currently there’s little to no research on high-school girls in rugby, so it's hard to compare them to anyone.
"Ultimately, my goal is to make the game safer and have more people playing instead of shying away because they’re unsure of the risks.
Her work is timely, as conversations around rugby safety grow louder, both here in Aotearoa and overseas. Nicole has presented her research internationally and worked in strength and conditioning, including at the Lincoln University Gym. She is now preparing for her next chapter in London and plans to stay actively involved in female-focused sports science.
Read more about Nicole's research
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Listen to Nicole’s podcast episode to hear about her findings and how they’re helping shift the conversation around rugby safety.
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[Host - Hiraina] Kia ora and welcome to from the ground up. I'm your host Hiraina Tangiora and I'm a lecturer and a PhD student here at Lincoln University. This podcast is all about the fantastic research being undertaken by our post-graduate students right here at Lincoln and the real world impact this has. In each episode, we'll sit down with brilliant minds to uncover fresh ideas, share inspiring research stories, and explore their student journey. Today, I'm chatting with Nicole Spriggs, who has just completed her PhD in sports science. Nicole's research focuses on how a season of rugby can affect brain health in high school female rugby players. She is now preparing for an exciting move to London. And looking ahead, she hopes to become a lecturer and stay connected to the academic world. Outside of her studies, Nicole enjoys putting her knowledge into practice through her part-time role at Body Fit Training. And unsurprisingly, her hobbies include hitting the gym, running, and exploring New Zealand's beautiful outdoors. Welcome to the podcast, Nicole. It's great to have you here.
[Guest – Nicole] Thanks for having me. It's good to be here.
[Host - Hiraina] Love it. So could you please start by telling us a bit about yourself and what you are studying here at Lincoln?
[Guest – Nicole] Wow, you did a pretty good summary of me to be honest. Um but yeah, I'm definitely a sporty girl. Um and that is how I kind of fell into researching in the sports space. Um my PhD, as you said, has been looking at how rugby affects brain health in high school girls. So I looked at um how we can change tackle technique to make rugby a little bit safer, how their brain structure changes from the beginning to the end of the season and also how their like cognition and their brain function changes from the beginning to the end of the season.
[Host - Hiraina] Great. And so you mentioned you're a sporty girl, hence a PhD in sport science.
[Guest – Nicole] Yes.
[Host - Hiraina] What inspired you to pursue research in this specific part of sport science?
[Guest – Nicole] Um, so in my undergrad, I did a bachelor of science and exercise sport science and I also had a minor in anatomy. And in the anatomy side of it, I kind of fell in love with concussions, which is a bit morbid, but I just found them so interesting and really cool. And then obviously cuz I love sport and I love being um hands-on in the field. That's how I fell into the sport side of research. Um, and rugby is kind of just the space that has all the concussions and all the money to do that. So that's sort of how I fell into rugby and into the place that I am at the moment. Yeah.
[Host - Hiraina] Great. Makes total sense. And why, Nicole, did you choose Lincoln University for your postgrad studies?
[Guest – Nicole] When I got to the end of my honors year, it was the end of co and everything was a little bit crazy. And I was looking around trying to figure out what I wanted to do and um this opportunity kind of got given to me um proposed to me that they had this research project that they wanted to do. It was on girls and rugby. It was the exact space I wanted to be. They obviously wanted a female cuz it was on girls. Um and that's kind of how I fell into here. And I actually went to Lincoln High School a while ago. So for me it kind of was just going back to home, coming back to my like little corner of the world, I guess.
[Host - Hiraina] Cool. So it makes complete sense as well. Nice. And so what does being here in Lincoln specifically mean in terms of your place in your research?
[Guest – Nicole] I've really enjoyed Lincoln mostly because of my supervisor. He has been amazing. I think because Lincoln's smaller, especially in the sport science space, your lecturers kind of have to be a bit of a jack of all trades. So he's been really good at being able to look at the biomechanics side of my research, but also the like neuro anatomy side of my research, but also the sociology part of it. And he's just been this huge wealth of knowledge that if I had have been at maybe a bigger institute with a couple more people, they've really um little bit more niche in what they do and I probably would have needed a bit more help from a bit more people. So it's really lovely to have um this my main supervisor who's just he's been great.
[Host - Hiraina] That's good. We like to hear successful supervisor stories on the podcast. I love it. And so having that, I guess, sort of multidisciplinary supervisor style. How has that in and this environment shaped your research in particular?
[Guest – Nicole] For one, it's shaped my research and the ability that I've been able to direct my research a little bit more. Um, and then he's been able to aid in all the areas of it and also kind of hone me into the implications in the real world and the how to be actually realistic with your research and um how to put it into the community, especially when it's something like rugby and I'm working with high school girls. you actually want to know that you're putting it in and it's being helpful for them and being able to acknowledge the sociology part of sport and how it's so important for your well-being and all that sort of stuff, but also the sciency side of it where you actually do real realize and see the change. Yeah. Did that kind of answer that?
[Host - Hiraina] Yeah. No, that's great. Thank you. And do you find with that in mind that your surroundings here help to keep you grounded in that real world?
[Guest – Nicole] I do think so. Yes. Um it's really nice to have the department where is got so much knowledge in it. Like my um associate supervisor, he's in the sociology side of sport. So it's really nice to have his input to kind of hone me into the real world as well. Um and then all the other sport science postgraduates where all kind of different spaces of sport science. So it's really nice to have their thoughts and opinions as well, especially from other sports cuz um obviously rugby’s you don't get concussions just in rugby. So, it's nice to have people who are doing research on basketball or um older athletes and things like that to have their um input and their thoughts of how you can kind of implement change into all areas of life.
[Host - Hiraina] Yeah. Great. So, a bit of a cohort of sports scholars.
[Guest – Nicole] Yeah, it's really nice.
[Host - Hiraina] Yeah. Very cool. We like to hear that. Yeah. And so, on your research in particular now, Nicole, what are the core research questions that you're trying to answer with your PhD?
[Guest – Nicole] Yeah. So, there's kind of three questions to it, I guess. Um the first one is kind of understanding he knocks in and rugby especially in high school girls. Um I've become a bit of a feminist with my research to be honest cuz rugby is such a male dominant sport. There's no research on females. So the start of it was basically just saying what's happening in the female game. How many hits are they getting? How big are they? How can we reduce these hits? How can we change their tackle technique? So that's kind of the first part of it. Um and then the second and third half kind of come hand in hand hand a little bit. Um, so we've got MRIs where we looked at how their brain structure changes um, from the beginning to the end of the season. And then with that, we also have neurocognitive testing. So how does their function change from the beginning and the end of the season? So they're kind of like my three little studies within my big grand picture, which is how do we just make rugby safer or how do we make people more knowledgeable about what's actually happening to their brain.
[Host - Hiraina] So how did you actually conduct your fieldwork? So to start off with, we had fancy little mouthguards that all of my players wore and that looked at how big um and how often they had um head impacts on the field. So that's not just like hitting your head on the ground. It looked at like the acceleration of the head. So if you got tackled at the waist, your head still kind of whips around and you get this big acceleration on the head which still um can put pressure and strain on your brain which a lot of people don't think about. Um so every game, every training, my girls wore these mouthguards so that we could do it. We um videoed every game in training as well. So I could look at the impacts afterwards and say that it was a tackle or it was a breakdown or they hit their head or they hit the head on the ground or they um what the tackle technique was around that so that when then we could give a little bit of insight into how we can change and um implement changes into tackle technique or rugby technique in general. Um they were really interesting to look at the size of the impact. So there's kind of this idea around the literature that if you have a head impact over a certain size, you'll potentially concuss. Um so world rugby actually implemented in the super rugby and in the um New Zealand um international level of rugby that if they get a head impact above a certain size, they actually have to get taken off the field for an HIA. um which is a really cool way to get those really fast um diagnosis’s of concussions, especially when a lot of people have really delayed um symptoms and for their concussions. So having that hands-on stuff and then implementing that or being able to look at that with my girls um especially when they did get concussed, being able to look at it and see what size their concussions were. Um so then we can then inform the concussion research as well as the um sub concussive research. So the sub concussive stuff just like every single impact in head acceleration event they had um in the season how big how many um and how did that affect their changes in brain structure that we did with the MRI scans as well.
[Host - Hiraina] How did you do so many MRI scans?
[Guest – Nicole] A lot of time and a lot of hours of watching rugby I think I've watched oh I have a figure of it I in terms of attending rugby games and watching the videos afterwards I think I watched about 1,000 hours of rugby and then the MRI scans so they had them pre-season postseason I did two seasons of data collection so I had um 40 girls all up and we actually replicated the study with the male um cohort as well so another student at UC he did them with males so we actually had 80 in total. Um, and I helped him with his MRI scans and he helped me. So, we had about four weekends at the start of the season, four weekends at the end of the season of MRI scans and neurocognitive testing um to just smash them all out. And then if the players got concussed during the season as well, we did MRI scans and neurocognitive testing again. Um, so I'm very very thankful that I've had um a good support crew around me. um and a lot of um the other PhD student who was doing the boys. It was really nice to have him kind of working alongside me battling it together um helping each other with our data collection when Yeah. This is a big and new area research so it helps to team up. Yes, it was actually so lovely having him there. like it was great to be able to talk to each other about what we were doing, making decisions kind of together in terms of the best way to do our data collection or um if there was like a sticky situation with um when we were analysing the data and stuff. It was really nice to be able to talk to each other because yeah, it is such a new thing. There's only a handful of research in the space and the research that is in the space all do their data analysis very differently. So, it's quite hard to know who to follow and what's the best avenue to follow with the um analysis of all the data as well.
[Host - Hiraina] Excellent. And who are you hoping will benefit the most from this work?
[Guest – Nicole] Rugby in general. Um we can definitely make a lot of change in that. Um I definitely have a passion for like the community rugby players. um obviously it's on high school girls so it's most um applicable to them but 90% of rugby players in New Zealand are community only 10% are elite players but like 90% of research is on elite so making that change in those younger players making them stay in the sport cuz sport is so important for you more than just your physical health mental health all that fun stuff as well so hopefully making some change to them and then also like the parents making them feel more comfortable with children being in sport um making them more knowledgeable and understanding of concussions and when you do get concussed what to do after that and all that stuff as well.
[Host - Hiraina] Cool. And I'm just guessing that these schools are sort of localish.
[Guest – Nicole] Yes. Um so I did Girls High um and Prebbleton the club Prebbleton down the road. Yeah. So it's like very very close to home as well which has been really nice.
[Host - Hiraina] Yeah. We like that. And um what impact, Nicole, do you think that given you've done sort of a local study, what impact could your research findings have on us like nationally or on a global scale as well?
[Guest – Nicole] Yeah. Um a lot of the research in this kind of space is actually out of New Zealand. So it's been really interesting. There's been a big study in Deneden, so it's been real interesting to compare to them, see how we do things a little bit differently. Um understand why we have such different results to them. Like is it because of just like the Christ Church population? Is it because of the coaches? considering we all do the same like rugby smart program, why are we so different? And then um yeah, being able to implement that across the world as well because if we are kind of leading the the research at the moment um being able to kind of replicate that across the world, see how things are different across the world, how we can um make it safer in general.
[Host - Hiraina] Nice. And some of those I guess challenges that you're grappling with here, do you think they have relevance overseas as well? like um I don't know if you've studied any international literature on female rugby players if it even exists. Uh are the statistics the same I guess around community versus things like that?
[Guest – Nicole] Oh, I think in New Zealand we're probably more accepting of female rugby players. There's a lot more female participation here. Um especially with like how well the Black Ferns have done recently with the recent um women's rugby world cup and all that sort of stuff as well. it's kind of made um a a lot a nicer culture in New Zealand for rugby for females um and from my understanding is not quite the same across the world. It's definitely getting there especially in like the UK and things like that. So, um there's definitely a lot of um deeply rooted masculinity in the sport that is um hopefully we can change with having some of this research, especially when females aren't just little males and um the bodies work quite differently.
[Host - Hiraina] Yeah, absolutely. And on that, how can we get your research into these wider global conversations?
[Guest – Nicole] Well, last year I actually went over to a conference over in the UK in Glasgow um and I shared some of my research that I had done. so far. So, that was a really good step for me to be able to um talk to everyone that was over in the UK, see what sort of research they were doing, see um how I could change what I'm doing to more closely align with what they're doing. And I actually had some really really good conversations with people um that did help inform my research and I hope I helped inform theirs while I was at it as well. So, things like that have are definitely really beneficial to kind of get out of the little bubble of New Zealand and um see how things can apply to everyone else.
[Host - Hiraina] Totally. And you're moving to London. Yes. Would there be some international collaborations on the cards then?
[Guest – Nicole] Yes, hopefully. Um, yeah, to be confirmed with a job, but that is my goal is to get over there, get into the research space over there. Um, I'm definitely keen to stay in the research that I'm doing here as well. It's kind of a big project that's through UC. Um, there's many more years of it through UC as well. Um, so yeah, the goal is to see what's over there, see how um I can Yeah. learn more.
[Host - Hiraina] Yeah. Especially in the female space, especially if New Zealand's leading the charge in rugby literature, let alone women's rugby literature. Exciting. Yeah. And so looking inwards, Nicole, and reflecting on your journey so far, what's been the most rewarding or surprising part of your PhD?
[Guest – Nicole] I honestly think being in female space has been challenging and rewarding. Um, one, everyone ignores females, especially in the health space. Um, they're just so much harder to work with because of differences in physiology and anatomy and things and so they're just females are kind of forgotten. Um, but like I said, we're not little males. Um, and so that has been really rewarding, but then in the same sense it's been challenging because you go through the literature and there's nothing there. And my whole health thesis I'm like, we can assume that potentially this is what's happening, but there's no research on females, so we can't confirm that. Um but yeah, it has been really nice and especially being hands-on um involved with the rugby teams and seeing like having conversations with parents and things and them saying to me how they see the importance of the research and how they can see it like already being implemented as we were doing the research and um just lots of little things like that. Being able to kind of pass on the knowledge to the girls while we were doing data collection um was really like heartwarming just to be hands-on involved with it all.
[Host - Hiraina] Yeah, that does sound really really rewarding, Nicole. And just that being able to turn out your outputs pretty fast, not having to wait 3 to four years to give them anything.
[Guest – Nicole] Yeah. And lots of conversations about like um concussion knowledge and stuff like um they just everyone knows that concussions are bad, right? everyone knows that, but no one really understands how to um recover from them or when to go back to training or what's normal, what's not normal. So, being able to actually have those conversations with them um and giving them that knowledge while we we were there with them was really nice as well. Obviously, I wasn't diagnosing concussions and things as for the doctors, but um being able to give them a little bit of help and a little bit of insight that they potentially didn't know beforehand was really nice as well.
[Host - Hiraina] And I suppose your area is almost one of longitudinal in that Yeah. the true impacts may not be known until further down the track.
[Guest – Nicole] Yeah. Yeah. So, the hope is that we in 5 years time do MRI scans on these girls again and see how their brains changed over a longer period of time. Um but yeah, it's hard to know truly what's going on in the brain um in like such a short amount of time and especially like um MRI scans are really really high tech stuff but then also at the same time they're not quite specific enough for like a six-month period. So it'll be really nice to see what's happening in 5 years time hopefully.
[Host - Hiraina] Yeah. And so you mentioned yeah you're going to London hoping to stay in research involved in research here but engaged in research over there. What is the sort of 5 to 10 year plan look like we see you back here at Lincoln?
[Guest – Nicole] Honestly I think I could end up back here. I've really enjoyed it here. Um I feel like there's at least for me there's been so much support. Um, and it has been such a really nice environment and I know that they're trying to push to have a little bit more um, sports science here. Um, so it'd be really lovely to come back and be within that space. Um, I do love it out here. It's so nice just, you know, drive 10 minutes out of town and you're in the nature and Yeah. Yeah, it's been good. Awesome. And there's rugby fields nearby. Yeah, it's all here.
[Host - Hiraina] Very cool. And how do you see yourself continuing to contribute to these changes and developments in your field in that 10 20 years?
[Guest – Nicole] Um, horizon. I definitely see myself probably in the future ending up being a lecturer, which is wild to me to think that I'm qualified to do that now. Um, I've always talked about wanting to do teaching and um kind of went from primary school and then I was like, I'll do high school teaching and then now just makes sense to be a lecturer. Um, I've always have demonstrated throughout uni as well and I really enjoy just kind of teaching other people and helping them and um, passing on the knowledge and I love learning so makes sense to just stay at uni for life.
[Host - Hiraina] That's kind of my ethos as well. I look forward to seeing you again soon. And if someone was thinking about doing postgraduate study here at Lincoln, what advice would you give to them?
[Guest – Nicole] Get involved early on. Um, I think that was one thing I potentially struggled with the most coming here is not really knowing anyone in um, the postgrad space or especially in sport science cuz we are like there's only a few of us. Um, my supervisor was really good at making sure that we we have our monthly yeah um little coffee catchups with all the sport science PhD students and it's been really nice to have those other little people have that community. Um, going to shout out to Hoani. He's had so many stupid questions from me. bless his soul. He's helped me so much. But being able to have that person um who's like a little bit ahead of you in your re in their research to help you um yeah, make those friends early on, get involved. Um, especially like I I'm on the fifth floor in Forbes and there's heaps of people there and I probably spent a year before I like started to talk to anyone there and I wish that I had have just gone and sat down to someone and had a yarn and learned about their research because some people do some really interesting research here and it's you kind of forget that yours isn't the end and be you know like there's other things going on. Just go go have a chat. Go meet people.
[Host - Hiraina] Yeah. Hey, it's easy to think that your research is the centre of the universe. I know. Yeah. It's my whole world. you're spending so long in it. Yeah. But no, I like that, Nicole, that you know, Lincoln is small and well connected as we say, so it's quite easy to go and have a chat, coffee. Yeah, 100% get involved. Love it. Now, what is the one thing that you want people to understand about your area of research?
[Guest – Nicole] Potentially controversial take, but um it's not that scary. Um, there's a lot of information out there about rugby and about concussions and don't get me wrong, they're like brain injury and everything is so bad and can be really bad. Um, but playing rugby or being involved in sport, you get so much out of it more than just being physically active. You get your social, you get your well-being, you get your connections with people. Especially in youth, it's like respect for coaches, respect for people, respect for time management, um being a part of a team is so so important for you. And then obviously concussion, brain injury is such a big part of it. But if you're due diligent and you look after yourself and you get a head knock and you're aware that you've got a head knock and you look after yourself, it's more important to stay within that space and within that community and get all those benefits out of sport. um than just like getting scared of it completely and running away and sitting at home watching play station all day. Um being able to keep people in the sport, keeping them in the space and obviously I want to make it as safe as we possibly can by implementing these changes and tackle technique or how um much contact training people can have every week or every season so that we can make it as safe as possible because I do think it is so so important to be keeping people within the space and keeping them active and keeping them connected. um for their long longevity, for their life, for just so many things.
[Host - Hiraina] Now, if others are listening and they're interested in the work you're doing, how can others support you or get involved with it?
[Guest – Nicole] You can do a PhD yourself. Get involved with it. There are so many, as I said, it's a big research study through UC as well, and it's still going on now. Um you can definitely get involved with like the research in any way that you want to. Um there's so many opportunities there to be involved in it. I'm more than happy for anyone to reach out to me. Um I'm assuming you'll link me below or something.
[Host - Hiraina] Sure.
[Guest – Nicole] Um and I I can talk for days about my research. I've got 200page document on it. So um I just say get involved, get started. Um if you think that you enjoy it or you're potentially passionate about it, go reach out to um any of my supervisors. They'll be happy to have chats with people as well and get them where they want to be.
[Host - Hiraina] Yeah. Cool. And your 200 page document. You handed in just recently.
[Guest – Nicole] Yeah. Like two weeks ago.
[Host - Hiraina] How did it feel?
[Guest – Nicole] Uh it's quite anticlimactic to be honest. You just email it away and then you sit there and you're like, "Oh, I'm done." But it was nice to have it done just to It's gone. Yeah.
[Host - Hiraina] Yeah. And so now, do you want to talk about the process, I suppose, from here?
[Guest – Nicole] Process from here is a little bit scary to be honest. Um, so I guess at the moment I'm working on um trying to get my thesis published. Um, so Lincoln Uni's actually given me a writing scholarship which is a six week scholarship which I'm very appreciative for because it's given me the time and the capacity and the ability to get my PhD published or some of it published. Um, and then now I'm just waiting around for it to get marked and defend it and hopefully pass the defence.
[Host - Hiraina] Yeah, you'll be fine. We're sure.
[Guest – Nicole] Uh, I'm having faith it'll be all good.
[Host - Hiraina] You have to let us know.
[Guest – Nicole] Yeah, I will.
[Host - Hiraina] And if you could sum up your research journey in one sentence, Nicole, this is not easy, but what would it be?
[Guest – Nicole] Just roll with the punches. Just it what will be will be. It works out. It all kind of just falls into place.
[Host - Hiraina] Very cool. Thank you. Now, two final questions to wrap us up.
[Guest – Nicole] Are they hard?
[Host - Hiraina] They're fun. So, first question. If you had a million dollars of research funding, what would you spend it on?
[Guest – Nicole] I would love to get involved more in female health. Crazy. Considering my whole thing's been female, looking at um how menstrual cycle affects um concussions and the how severe a concussion is. And because there's a bit of research on how different points in your cycle, you can um have the same size impact, but you're more or less um severe with your concussion. So looking at that and how that could um affect it and affect your recovery.
[Host - Hiraina] Cool. That sounds great. You can do that when you come back.
[Guest – Nicole] Yeah. As couple years time.
[Host - Hiraina] Exactly. And now this is a very ling question. Got to ask it. What is your favourite food and fibre product?
[Guest – Nicole] protein powder. Whey protein powder.
[Host - Hiraina] It makes sense. It makes sense. Is there anything else you want to add that we haven't covered yet?
[Guest – Nicole] Just pull the trigger and do it. I think I was really not scared, but um I felt like I wasn't qualified enough to do a PhD um cuz I jumped straight from honors to PhD, which was quite intense. Um but just have faith in yourself. Um even now I feel unqualified and I finished it. Um, but just just do it. You'll regret it if you don't. So, pull the trigger. And also, it doesn't matter how long it takes you to do it. There's always this mindset of like you have to get your PhD done in 3 years. No one gets it done in 3 years. Just like spend the time, look after yourself. If you need it extend by a couple of months or years or whatever, just do that cuz it's better to look after yourself and hand in something that you're truly proud of um than to be like, I have to get it done in my 3 years. And give yourself breaks during it. Go on holiday, have two weeks off over Christmas. Don't It's not the whole world. Just It's just a job.
[Host - Hiraina] Cool. Well, thanks so much for your time, Nicole. Really appreciate it. And all the best for your oral defense.
[Guest – Nicole] Yeah. Well, thanks for having me.
[Host - Hiraina] No worries. So, a big thank you to Nicole for joining me today and sharing her research journey. It was such an insightful cord. This has been from the ground up. I'm your host, Hiraina Tangiora. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed today's podcast on our particate research and you want to hear more about the people behind it, don't forget to rate, subscribe, and share this podcast with your friends. We'll see you next time.
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