PONE-D-24-01874Longitudinal changes in anthropometric, physiological, and physical qualities of international women’s rugby league players.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Scantlebury,

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Jovan Gardasevic

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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“I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests:

SS is the strength and conditioning coach for England women's rugby league

SC is the nutritionist for England women's rugby league

NC is the sports scientist for England women's rugby league

GP is the head of medical for England women's rugby league

SB is the manager of England women's rugby league.

BJ is the head of performance for England rugby league”

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: A very interesting study. It is particularly interesting because we have a longitudinal study, which is very rare today.

Methodologically, the paper is very well laid out. Language and writing style also very good. What I can suggest to pay particular attention to and correct is:

- We must adhere to the rules and principles of writing throughout the work. Namely, in one situation you write the title of the table (Table 1) below the table itself, and in the next situation you write the title of the table (Table 2) above the table. This must be uniform.

- Paragraph 251 (it seems to me that it is not written in the same font and size as the other paragraphs)

- Display of results very well done

- The discussion should be more detailed. Namely, very often you state some data from the results, point out that it is interesting and that's where the explanation ends. It is very important to note why there is or is not statistical significance somewhere. Of course, the explanation can be your thought, or a conclusion based on some previous research. In this way, the discussion remains deprived of some clarifications. This refers to the first part of the discussion up to paragraph 351. From paragraph 351 until the end of the discussion, I have no objections.

Reviewer #2: First of all, I find the work interesting. the fact that the first longitudinal work is related to the issue of work gives additional value to the work, because much more data is obtained through longitudinal research. The paper is generally good, which means that all the methodological rules of writing the paper have been followed, from the introduction in which the authors introduce the reader to all terms related to the research problem. In doing so, but also in the rest of the work, they use a large number of references that are fairly recent, which is commendable. The choice of respondents, instruments that were used is correct. The tables clearly and concretely describe the microcycles and training programs in the preseason and the season itself. What also gives the work value is the large number of data obtained by measurement. All these data were correctly interpreted with an adequate statistical method, through a rich discussion, and finally the correct conclusions were drawn. The authors also clearly pointed out the advantages and disadvantages of the work itself. I have no major complaints. I would like to ask the authors about the breakfast they received during the research, what is meant by the term standard breakfast and whether they made a targeted selection of it, i.e. proteins and carbohydrates and other components. The second question relates to the off-season period, whether the authors believe that two to three training sessions are enough for further progress, given that they are top athletes. And finally, a technical comment. The title of Table 1 should be above the table and not below it. In any case, I believe that the work deserves to be published in a journal.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Longitudinal changes in anthropometric, physiological, and physical qualities of international women’s rugby league players.

PONE-D-24-01874R1

Dear Dr Sean Scantlebury,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Jovan Gardasevic

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Dear Author,

I read the manuscript and the reviewers' comments in detail. In my opinion, the manuscript is now ready for publication in this respectable journal.

Kind regards,

reviewer

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: the authors made an effort to accept and correct everything related to my suggestions, so that the paper is now very well done.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

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