Profiling bilateral skills in high-performance male and female gaelic footballers

Bilateral skill symmetry in sport refers to an individual’s ability to successfully perform sporting actions with both sides of the body. Two scarcely researched areas in relation to bilateral skills are the effects of opposition proximity on skill execution and bilateral skill in high-performance female athletes. In this study, we used Nacsport to code all skill executions (hand pass, kick pass, hop, solo and shot) during 121 games by both male and female participants (76 male, 45 female), classified as Tier 1 (n = 181, 134) and Tier 2 (n = 238, 115) high performance, adult Gaelic Football players. Irrespective of the participants’ tier group or gender, these players relied upon their dominant side for most skill executions (Kick Pass Dominant Foot Mdn: MT1 = 90%, MT2 = 98.6%, FT1 = 100%, FT2 = 100%; Solo Dominant Foot: Mdn MT1 = 95%, MT2 = 97.3%, FT1: 100%, FT2: 100%; Hand Pass Dominant Hand Mdn: MT1: 83.7%, MT2: 99%, FT1: 95.5%, FT2: 95.5%; Hop Dominant Hand Mdn: MT1: 91.9%, MT2: 94.7%, FT1: 98.1%, FT2: 98.1%; Play Dominant Foot Mdn: MT1: 74.5%, MT2: 94.5%, FT1: 94.7%, FT2: 88.2%). There were no consistent differences between tier groups or genders in relation to dominant side use, but top tier male players were generally less reliant on the dominant limb than were female players from both tiers. In general, top tier male players performed more successfully than either second tier male players or female players in both tiers. Most skills were executed under conditions of low opponent proximity, limiting the requirement for participants to use their non-dominant limbs. These findings illustrate the demands of Gaelic football in relation to bilateral skills, and we identified new research questions for future investigators.