The ball-in-play vs. ball-out-of-play match demands of elite senior hurling

Purpose: The current study examined the match-play running performances and positional differences between ball-in-play (BiP) and ball-out-of-play (BoP) in elite senior hurling. Methods: Players (n = 44) were divided into full-backs, half-backs, midfielders, half-forwards and full-forwards. GPS (STATSports APEX, 10 Hz,) was used to record players’ movements during 22 games (2018–2020). Video recording of games was analyzed and a SportsCode timeline was integrated into the GPS software to split the data into BiP/BoP. Relative (RD), high-speed running (HSR) (17–21.9 km·h−1), sprint- (≥ 22 km·h−1), and high metabolic load-distance (HMLD), accelerations (> 3 m·s−2) and decelerations (> 3 m·s−2) were expressed for the whole-game and relative to the whole-game, BiP and BoP. Results: Ball-in-play and BoP durations were 31:56 ± 3.11 min and 46:05 ± 4:12 min, respectively. Compared to whole-game, greater RD (135 ± 25 m·min−1, ES = 2.00), HSR (24 ± 7 m·min−1, ES = 2.28), sprinting (10 ± 8 m·min−1, ES = 2.10), HMLD (41 ± 10 m·min−1, ES = 2.15), number of accelerations, (0.18 ± 0.11, ES = 2.16) and decelerations (0.26 ± 0.10, ES = 1.88) was found in BiP. Half-backs, midfielders and half-forwards outperformed full-backs and full-forwards in RD (ES = 0.73, 1.75, 1.18 and 1.04, 2.37, 1.66, respectively), HSR (ES = 1.00, 1.17, 1.47, and 0.87, 1.06, 1.39, respectively), and HMLD (ES = 0.99, 1.44, 0.99, and 1.29, 1.84, 1.29, respectively) during BiP. In BoP, half-backs and midfielders covered greater RD than full-backs (ES = 0.81 and 0.88, respectively), and full-forwards (ES = 1.09 and 1.18, respectively). Half-backs covered a greater RD than half-forwards (ES = 0.66). Conclusion: Greater demands were observed in BiP than whole-game and BoP. The middle three positions seem more demanding than full-backs and full-forwards. BiP demands could be utilised to understand the requirements within hurling training.