Scoring in Gaelic games - H shaped posts

Gaelic Football Inter-County Championship Scoring since 1910

Hurling and Gaelic Football ratio of points to goals since 1910

This page discusses scoring in the

Gaelic games Gaelic games ( ga, Cluichí Gaelacha) are a set of sports played worldwide, though they are particularly popular in Ireland, where they originated. They include Gaelic football, hurling, Gaelic handball and rounders. Football and hurling, th ...

hurling Hurling ( ga, iománaíocht, ') is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic Irish origin, played by men. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goals, the number of pla ...

Gaelic football Gaelic football ( ga, Peil Ghaelach; short name '), commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA or Football is an Irish team sport. It is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by ki ...

camogie Camogie ( ; ga, camógaíocht ) is an Irish stick-and-ball team sport played by women. Camogie is played by 100,000 women in Ireland and worldwide, largely among Irish communities. A variant of the game of hurling (which is played by men only ...

ladies' Gaelic football Ladies' Gaelic football ( ga, Peil Ghaelach na mBan) is a women's team sport. It is the women's equivalent of Gaelic football. Ladies' football is organised by the Ladies' Gaelic Football Association. Two teams of 15 players kick or hand-pass a ...

international rules football International rules football ( ga, Peil na rialacha idirnáisiunta; also known as international rules in Australia and compromise rules or Aussie rules in Ireland) is a team sport consisting of a hybrid of football codes, which was develop ...

and shinty-hurling. Note that although

rounders Rounders is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams. Rounders is a striking and fielding team game that involves hitting a small, hard, leather-cased ball with a rounded end wooden, plastic, or metal bat. The players score by running arou ...

and

Gaelic handball Gaelic handball (known in Ireland simply as handball; ga, liathróid láimhe) is a sport where players hit a ball with a hand or fist against a wall in such a way as to make a shot the opposition cannot return, and that may be played with two ( ...

are considered "Gaelic games", they are not listed under this page.

Scoring

and shinty-hurling, the goalposts are placed apart and are at least tall, with a crossbar at a height of . Playing the ball (a

sliotar A sliotar ( , ) or sliothar is a hard solid sphere slightly larger than a tennis ball, consisting of a cork core covered by two pieces of leather stitched together. Sometimes called a "hurling ball", it resembles a baseball with more pronounced ...

Gaelic ball A football or Gaelic ball () is the spherical leather football used in the sports of Gaelic football and ladies' Gaelic football and international rules football. The pattern of panels consists of six groups perpendicular to each other, each gro ...

, depending on the game) between the posts and below the crossbar scores a goal (), while playing the ball between the posts and above the crossbar scores a point (''cúilín''). A goal is worth 3 points. The umpire signifies a goal by waving a green flag, and a point by waving a white flag. Signal flags have been used since the 1900s; one game in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

in 1907 used a US flag to signify points, and an Irish flag (presumably the tricolour) for a goal. The tradition of green flag for goal and white flag for point appears to date from the 1920s. International Rules Football scores

there are further posts either side of the goalposts. Playing the ball between the goalposts and these side posts scores a behind. Playing the ball between the centre posts and below the crossbar scores a goal, while playing the ball between the posts and above the crossbar scores an over. A goal is worth 6 points, an over 3, and a behind 1.

Terminology

The Irish term for goal is ''cúl'',

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical e ...

with

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

''cūlus'', "rear." "Point" is ''cúilín'', a

diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A ( abbreviated ) is a word-form ...

form.

History

First GAA rules

The first

and

rules were published by the fledgling

Gaelic Athletic Association The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ga, Cumann Lúthchleas Gael ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional ...

in 1885. These specified goalposts similar to soccer goals: for football wide and a crossbar high, while for hurling they were wide and a crossbar high. Goals were the only score possible; this led to a high number of scoreless draws. In 1886, two poles were placed either side of the goals. A goal was scored when the ball was played into the goal; a point was scored when the ball was played above the crossbar, or wide of the goals between the two outer posts. When the ball was played wide of the outer posts, no score was recorded, unless it was played by a defender, in which case a ''forfeit point'' was awarded. Whichever team scored more goals won the game; if teams were tied on goals, points were counted, and forfeit points were worth of a point. The score was written in the format ''goals''–''points'' (''forfeit points''), e.g. Tipperary's score of 1-1 (1) in the

1887 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Final The 1887 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Final was a hurling match that was played at Birr Sportsfield, Birr on 1 April 1888 to determine the winners of the 1887 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, the first season of the All-Irel ...

. Forfeit points rarely made any difference, although one game in 1887 ended North Tipperary 0-0 (1), Holycross 0-0 (0).

Changes

In 1888 the forfeit point was abolished, replaced by a puck in hurling and a kick in football. Hurling and Gaelic football goals were made the same size: by . In 1892 the goal was changed to be worth five points. In 1896 the goal was reduced to three points, and has held that value ever since. In 1910 the side posts were removed, and the H-shaped goalposts introduced. Now, a point had to go over the crossbar. Since 2012 a sideline cut has been worth two points in

Camogie Camogie ( ; ga, camógaíocht ) is an Irish stick-and-ball team sport played by women. Camogie is played by 100,000 women in Ireland and worldwide, largely among Irish communities. A variant of the game of hurling (which is played by men only ...

. Since 2020 a '45 has been worth two points in

ladies' Gaelic Football Ladies' Gaelic football ( ga, Peil Ghaelach na mBan) is a women's team sport. It is the women's equivalent of Gaelic football. Ladies' football is organised by the Ladies' Gaelic Football Association. Two teams of 15 players kick or hand-pass a ...

if it goes straight over without a deflection, otherwise it is worth one point.

Modern experiments

In the

2005 National Hurling League The 2005 National Hurling League, known for sponsorship reasons as the Allianz National Hurling League, was the 74th edition of the National Hurling League (NHL), an annual hurling competition for the GAA county teams. Kilkenny GAA, Kilkenny won t ...

two points were awarded for a point scored from a sideline cut in hurling, in recognition of the difficulty of this skill (typically only about one-fifth of such efforts are successful). The idea of increasing the value of the goal to 4 points has come up repeatedly in recent years.

Frequency

An oft-repeated aphorism, especially with regard to Gaelic football, is "points win games" or "take your points and the goals will come." This has become especially true in recent decades: in the mid-1970s, games in the

All-Ireland Senior Football Championship The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship (SFC) ( ga, Craobh Shinsir Peile na hÉireann) is the premier competition in Gaelic football. An annual tournament organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), it is contested by the county ...

averaged 3.5 goals, but in the 2000s this had fallen to 1 goal per game. Martin Breheny observed "Improved fitness levels, more mobile defenders, and better defensive techniques have combined to seal off attackers' approach routes, making the goal an endangered species." Raising the value to 4 or even 5 points has been suggested. In hurling, goals per game has decreased from a peak of 4.18 per game in 1983, in part because of a rule change that banned handpassed goals.

Notation

A particular notation has been developed over the years by journalists and statisticians to record scoring in Gaelic games.

Score by team

A team's score is given in the form ''goals-points'', separated by either a

hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. ''Son-in-law'' is an example of a hyphenated word. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes ( figur ...

( - ) or

en dash The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

( – ), for example ''Kerry 2-10 Cork 1-14''. The total points score may be given in brackets afterward for clarity: ''Kerry 2-10 (16) Cork 1-14 (17)'', but goals are never converted into points. Unlike other sports, where the home team's name is given before the away team, in Gaelic games the winning team's name is almost always given first. Scores are spoken aloud thus: *0-20: "twenty points" *1-6: "one six" *3-17: "three seventeen" *2-0: "two goals" *0-0: "no score" In

, the score is given in the format ''goals.overs.points (total)'', for example the

2014 International Rules Series The 2014 International Rules Series (officially the 2014 Virgin Australia International Rules Test) was contested between Gaelic footballers from Ireland and Australian footballers from Australia. The 18th series of international rules foo ...

ended Australia 0.17.5 (56),

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

2.9.7 (46).

Score by player

In newspaper and other written accounts of games, the score of each individual player is given in abbreviated format. First the total is given, and then it is broken down by dead ball scores. *f or fs: free kicks / free pucks *pen: penalty kicks / penalty pucks *'45' or ‘45: 45-metre kick (awarded in

and ladies Gaelic football when a defender plays the ball over his/her own end line, like a

corner kick A corner kick is the method of restarting play in a game of association football when the ball goes out of play over the goal line, without a goal being scored and having last been touched by a member of the defending team. The kick is taken ...

in soccer); a 45-metre puck is awarded in

*'65' or ‘65: 65-metre puck (awarded in

when a defender plays the ball over his own end line) *s/l or sl: sideline kicks / sideline pucks * Scores from open play are not indicated; any scores not accounted for by dead ball are from open play by default. So if a report says ''James Kelly 2-5 (1-1f, 1-0pen, 0-2 '45')'', it means that he scored 2 goals and 5 points, of which a goal and a point were from frees, a goal from a penalty, two points from 45-metre kicks, and the other two points were from open play. If no goals are scored, the ''0-'' will be omitted, e.g. ''Michael O'Shea 0-9 (5f, 1 '65', 1 s/l)''. If all scores were of one type, the brackets may be omitted, reading: ''Síle Harrington 0-5f'' (indicating five points, all of which were frees) or ''J. J. Maguire 1-0pen'' (one goal, a penalty) or sometimes ''Sarah Moore 0-4(fs)''.

References

{{Reflist

External links

"Case in points - hurling's high-score head-scratcher"
RTÉ, 27 October 2020 Camogie Gaelic football Gaelic games terminology Hurling