An assessment of physical and spatiotemporal behaviour during different phases of match play in professional Australian football

Despite advancements in the scale of data available for quantifying the physical and spatiotemporal characteristics of match play, there is an absence of research combining these aspects in professional sport. This study sought to differentiate between phases of play in professional Australian football using novel physical and spatiotemporal metrics. Data was obtained from Australian Football League games to provide new insight into the specific characteristics of each phase of play. A retrospective cross-sectional design was utilised with team’s physical and spatiotemporal variables, measured via global navigation satellite system devices. A multinomial logistic regression was conducted to determine which physical and spatiotemporal measures were associated with each phase of play (contested play, defence, offence, set shot, goal reset, umpire stoppage). The addition of the predictors to a model that contained only the intercept significantly improved the fit between the model and data, with the logistic model correctly predicting the phase of play for 63.7% of the cases. This was the first study to concurrently examine differences in physical and spatiotemporal characteristics with respect to phase of play in an Australian football context. Differences in duration, physical and spatiotemporal properties were observed, providing new insight for coaches and subsequently providing direction for conditioning and practice design.