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This is a fair point and is a potential “limitation” of the technique. Robin developed this technique and as he describes it, the group used to generate the Z scores should “make sense”. If you have a back row in a group with outside backs then it wouldn’t be very surprising if the profile highlights weaknesses in the 20-30 and 30-40 m splits. We have included in the text “A good rule of thumb” which would be to match athletes / players based on general speed qualities that are desirable for their position. Hopefully the article shows a step by step process to interpreting the plots mixing qualitative (where is there a deficit) and quantitative (what is the absolute difference? Is it meaningful?).
It can’t be stressed enough though – the normative group is key. This technique is not going to be meaningful if you have small sample size in your normative group or the members of your normative group have fundamentally different training goals and performance demands.
