U14 Players Selected Into a Gaelic Football Development Program Are More Mature, Bigger, Faster, and More Powerful than Their Nonselected Peers

Abstract – Kyles, A, Oliver, JL, Lloyd, RS, Pedley, J, Cahill, MJ, and Lacey, K. U14 players selected into a Gaelic football development program are more mature, bigger, faster, and more powerful than their nonselected peers. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000–000, 2026—Selection decisions for academy sporting systems are often made when players are at a young age and still physically developing. The purpose of this study was to investigate how maturity, size, and physical performance are associated with, and could predict, selection into an U14 male Gaelic football academy. Eighty-three U14 male Gaelic footballers were assessed for maturity and anthropometrics (height, body mass), jump performance (countermovement jump, standing broad jump [SBJ], jump, drop jump [DJ]), speed (10 and 30 m sprint times), and linear repeated sprint ability before being selected (n = 53) or nonselected (n = 30) into a county Gaelic football academy. There was no difference in age between groups (odds ratio [OR] = 1.27, p > 0.05), but selected players were significantly more mature (OR = 2.47, p < 0.01), taller (OR = 2.24, p < 0.01), and heavier (OR = 1.89, p < 0.05) than nonselected players. When categorized into bands, early maturing players were 10 times more likely to be selected than their late maturing peers (OR = 10.21, p = 0.01). Furthermore, selected players were superior across physical performance measures, notably sprinting faster, jumping higher and further, and producing more power than their nonselected peers (range in OR = 2.10–3.21, all p < 0.05). Collectively, measures of height, 10 and 30 m sprint time, repeated sprint time, SBJ, and DJ contact time significantly differentiated between groups (OR = 6.52) with excellent predictive ability (area under curve = 0.90). Boys selected into an U14 Gaelic football academy were bigger and physically fitter than their nonselected peers. Youth practitioners currently place importance on physical fitness qualities; however, given superior size and fitness at U14 age is likely to be largely influenced by maturity status, maturity should be accounted for when making selection decisions into talent development pathways.