Speed Profiling in Ladies Gaelic Football: Monitoring Methods and Match-Play Demands

Monitoring Methods and Match-Play Demands: Gaelic Football is a major participation sport in Ireland with a rapidly growing popularity in the UK and USA. Founded in 1974, Ladies Gaelic Football has over 1,000 clubs and is one of the main team-sports of women in Ireland. It is recognised as one of the fastest growing female sports in Europe. However, in the sports science literature, a dearth of research has been carried out in Ladies Gaelic Football. Although Gaelic Football requires significant levels of technical and tactical skills, physical abilities such as aerobic capacity, strength, power, and speed are also fundamental to high performance. Speed profiling is a method that identifies a player’s areas of improvement which can subsequently be addressed through training. Developing profiling tools requires an in-depth analysis of the demands of the sport, knowledge of key positional differences and sport specific monitoring methods. Current research on profiling in Ladies Gaelic Football is non-existent. Consequently, research that develops profiling methods for use in inter-county Ladies Gaelic Football would make a substantial contribution to the sport and the athletes involved.  

Eddie McGuinness

Eddie holds an honours degree in Athletic Therapy & Training, graduating from Dublin City University in 2020.  Eddie is also a practising athletic therapist and strength & conditioning coach in Gaelic Games.  Supervisors: Dr Robin Healy, Dr Kris Beattie, Dr Mark Lyons, Dr Aoife Lane, and Dr Clement Higginbotham.