Understanding the impact of pitch location on shot outcome in Gaelic football – where is the scoring zone?

How do situational variables, related to shooting, in elite Gaelic football impact shot success?

“…In their research in soccer, Gonzales-Rodenas 5 and Kubayi 6 only reported on goals scored while Si Hang and Yang 7 did measure both successful and unsuccessful shots but did not offer a breakdown of the nature of the set-piece attempts, thereby comparison of success rates with soccer research is not feasible. The current research demonstrates that shooting from a free kick can increase the range for successful shooting, extending the shooting zone described by McGuigan and Collins 18 to a 40 m arc from the centre of goal within which success rate remains above the threshold of 57.6% as outlined by McGuckin et al 2 for winning teams. From a defensive perspective, the results highlight the importance of not conceding free kicks, with shots from play falling <57.6% threshold beyond 28ma difference of 12 m between open play and free-kick attempts.…”

“…This model provides coaches with a method to quantify the quality of a shot in terms of the potential for shot success (Table 6). Using off the shelf analysis software it is feasible to attribute the required information to shots, generate the distance and angle data 18 and then calculate the probability of shot success through the application of the logistic regression model. Through quantification of shot success probability, coaches may have a mechanism through which to gauge the effectiveness of both attacking and defensive play in terms of the quality of chances created and conceded.…”

“…One match from the 2019 championship fixtures (Mayo vs New York) was excluded since New York do not progress to compete in the All-Ireland series following their participation in the Connacht senior football championship. Shot data was exported to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (Microsoft, Washington, USA) where additional calculations 18 were performed to generate shot distance and angle from the software-generated x , y coordinate data. Data was connected to Tableau data analytics package (Tableau, Seattle, USA) for further analysis and visualisation, and imported to RStudio (RStudio, Boston, USA) for logistic regression modelling.…”

“…Selected predictor variables included two continuous variables, distance of shot from goal (m) and angle of shot away from the midline of the pitch. 18 Categorical variables included were type (open play, dead ball hand, dead ball ground), method (left foot, right foot, hand) and pressure (low, medium and high) with an additional categorical variable indicating whether a shot was a goal attempt or a point attempt also included. Table 4 shows the results of the model fitted through RStudio using the glm function based on the predictor variables listed above.…”

“…Shot success is a proven determinant of successful performance in elite GF 2–4 while McGuigan and Collins 18 defined the scoring zone in GF as being within a 32 m arc of the goal, and not beyond an angle of 60° from the midline of the pitch. Despite this research, there is a lack of academic research to underpin coaching practices associated with the achievement of shot success in GF.…”