Numbers ensure GAA teams value their unsung heroes

In elite performance analysis, assists are just one of many metrics used to assess GAA players. Context is everything in that sphere.

Kerry’s top assister in the 2025 championship was Graham O’Sullivan. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

Kerry 4-11, Longford 1-11. Full-forward Kieran Donaghy scored a single point and was still the obvious candidate for man of the match. It was enshrined in that iconic headline that became shorthand for his arrival: ‘A Star is born.’ Despite his sole white flag, Donaghy had a hand in 4-4 in that fixture. It would have been 5-4 if not for a missed penalty. He was a focal point on the edge of the square, content to facilitate a constellation of strikers around him. In a world obsessed with scores, he craved the obscure commodity: Assists.

"I would have been like that coming from a basketball perspective as a player, when I came into the Kerry dressing room I would have never cared about scoring,” he later explained, speaking just after he became Armagh coach.