How to Play
St. Brendan's Gaelic Football Club




Gaelic football is a fast and exciting field game unique to Ireland. It can be
described as a mixture of soccer and rugby, but is a lot older. It is a field game
which has developed as a distinct game similar to the progression of Australian
Rules.
There are 15 players on a team and the object is to kick, hand-pass or fist a
leather ball through to the opponents goal, into the net as in soccer to score three
points or to put it over a crossbar for one point. Each game lasts for 70 minutes
with two halves of 35 minutes each.
The ball used in Gaelic Football is round, slightly smaller than a soccer ball. It can
be carried in the hand for a distance of four steps and can be kicked or
"hand-passed", a striking motion with the hand or fist. After every four steps the
ball must be either bounced or "solo-ed", an action of dropping the ball onto the
foot and kicking it back into the hand. You may not bounce the ball twice in a row
Each team consists of 15 players, lining out as follows: 1 goalkeeper, 3 full-backs,
3 half-backs, 2 midfielders, 3 half-forwards and 3 full-forwards.
A goal is signalled with an umpire to the left of the goal raising a green flag A point
is signalled by raising a white flag to the right of goal. A '45'/'65' is signalled by the
umpire raising his/her outside arm. A 'square ball', when a player scores having
arrived in the 'square' prior to receiving the ball, is signalled by pointing at the
small parallelogram.
Gaelic football as played today is a modern, fast and enjoyable sport. Almost
2,600 clubs promote the game and there are branches of the Gaelic Athletic
Association in England, Scotland, USA, Canada, Australia, parts of Asia and in
most countries in Europe.
The game is played in 3,500 primary schools and this is where most players make
their first contact with the game.
