Comparing Gaelic football to the determinants of winning performance in Australian Rules football

Abstract

With reference to player recruitment, performance analysis has seldom been completed on two different sports within one code; nor has much research centred on Gaelic football (GF), due in part to its amateur status. Post-event analysis was undertaken on 10 precoded Toyota AFL 2013 Premiership Australian Rules football (ARF) matches and nine 2013 GF Senior County matches. Hand notation was used for analysing the GF footage. Test-retest reliability was conducted, with an overall percentage error of 5.2% being deemed adequate for the systems use. The initial part of the study assessed the differences between winning and losing in ARF (using Wilcoxon’s Signed Ranks test) with significant differences (p < 0.05) found in uncontested possessions, kick clangers and goals at team level; contested marks, handballs ineffective and frees against for defensive units; kick clangers for midfield units; disposals, total handballs, inside 50s and handball clangers for offensive units; kick clangers for midfielders and uncontested possessions for ruckmen. As such, these KPIs should be assessed throughout the season on a game-by-game basis to evaluate the quality of performance. Comparing the ARF results to the data gathered from GF match analysis was completed directly, using the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test, and indirectly, contrasting Wilcoxon’s test results against each other. Twenty-six of the 30 key performance indicators (KPIs) were significantly different (p < 0.05) from each other at team level, suggesting that ARF and GF are inherently different sports and lack commonality. This lack of commonality impacts upon recruitment of GF players to ARF, as a move away from recruiting them could be advocated. At unit level, there were few KPIs that were significant in both ARF and GF, while the percentage contribution for each unit was up to 30% different. At position level, no GF position was more than 50% similar to ruckmen, while each GF position only had, at most, one similar KPI to midfielders in ARF. Again, this suggests the degree of commonality between the two sports is relatively low and recruitment of GF players could potentially be suspended until more is known about the subject area. In conclusion, the sports of ARF and GF are inherently different and recruitment of GF players to ARF should be undertaken with caution.