The purposes of this study were threefold: to explore former rugby league players` experiences of professional academy environments, to understand their reasons for dropping out of the sport, and to explore their recommendations for optimising future talent development environments. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine ex-professional academy rugby league players up to one year after dropping out of playing rugby. A combination of inductive and deductive thematic analysis was employed to analyse the data. The thematic analysis revealed three general dimensions: talent development pathways, reasons for dropout, and recommendations. The findings suggest that players` talent development experiences, and the reasons for dropout could be explained by a complex interaction of micro (e.g. negative academy experiences), meso (e.g. education), exo (e.g. player pathway structures), and macro systems (e.g. transitions to other clubs). It is concluded from these findings that talent development pathways which lack a long-term focus, and emphasise early success are likely to result in increased risk of burnout, de-motivation, and subsequent dropout. From an applied perspective, talent development pathways must consider the many personal and environmental factors which interact to determine an individual`s talent development trajectory. Furthermore, by recognising the multiple factors that may influence development, the effectiveness of development pathways may be enhanced by neither excluding "potential" through inappropriate early identification, nor ignoring crucial talent development variables that contribute toward the fulfilment of potential.
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