1 2 3 4 1 Determinants of successful possession in Elite Gaelic Football 5 6 7 8 2 Ben McGuckina,b,* Jonathan Bradleya, Mike Hughesa, Peter O’Donoghuec 9 10 11 3 and Denise Martind 12 13 14 a b c 15 4 Centre for Performance Analysis, ITC, Carlow, Eire; Derry GAA, Cardiff School of 16 17 5 Sport, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Cyncoed Campus, Cardiff, Wales, CF23 6XD, 18 19 d 20 6 UK; School of Business, Technological University Dublin, Blanchardstown Campus, 21 22 7 Dublin 15. 23 24 25 8 26 27 28 9 *Ben McGuckin, Owenbeg Centre Of Excellence, Dungiven, Co. Derry, Northern 29 30 10 Ireland. Email:
[email protected] 31 32 33 11 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 1 2 3 4 12 Determinants of successful possession in Elite Gaelic Football 5 6 7 8 9 13 Game demands of Elite Men’s Gaelic Football (GF) are understudied and far from 10 11 14 clear. This first study to investigate the performance outcomes for winners and 12 13 15 losers in a complete Senior Inter-county championship (SFC) will analyse which 14 15 16 characteristics of possession were more likely to lead to score. 16 17 18 19 17 Possessions (n = 6,174) from all games in the 2016 SFC (n = 64) were analysed 20 21 18 using Dartfish ConnectPlus 7.0. Wilcoxon signed rank test identified statistical 22 23 24 19 differences (p<0.05) between 20 performance indicators for winning versus losing 25 26 20 teams, while a binary logistic regression was used to model shot outcome in terms 27 28 21 of process indicators; method of gaining possession, area possession is gained, 29 30 22 number of passes and duration of each possession, on the outcome of the 31 32 23 possession.