The Positional Match Running Performance of Elite Gaelic Football.

There is currently limited information available on match running performance in Gaelic football. The objective of the current study was to report on the match running profile of elite male Gaelic football and assess positional running performance. In this observational study 50 elite male Gaelic football players wore 4-Hz GPS units (VXsports, New Zealand) across 30 competitive games with a total of 212 full game data sets collected. Activity was classed according to total distance, high speed distance (≥17 km.h), sprint distance (≥22 km.h), mean velocity (km.h), peak velocity (km.h) and number of accelerations. The average match distance was 8160 ± 1482 m, reflective of a relative distance of 116 ± 21 m.min, with 1731 ± 659 m covered at high speed which is reflective of a relative high speed distance of 25 ± 9 m.min. The observed sprint distance was 445 ± 169 m distributed across 44 sprint actions. The peak velocity was 30.3 ± 1.8 km.h with a mean velocity of 6.5 ± 1.2 km.h. Players completed 184 ± 40 accelerations which represent 2.6 ± 0.5 a.min. There were significant differences between positional groups for both total running distance, high speed running distance and sprint distance, with midfielders covering more total and high speed running distance, compared to other positions (p<0.001). There was a reduction in high speed and sprint distance between the first and second half (p