• Can Glen profit from the big chances they create through their kicking game? • Will Kilmacud’s shot execution be better? And will Walsh & Mannion be as subdued (from play) as in the 2022 final? • Bench impact • Kickouts; will both teams go long against the press? And can either middle third gain an advantage. Ignoring the 16th man controversy, the closeness of last year’s final, where Conor Ferris produced a truly magnificent reactionary save to deny Conor Glass in the second minute of injury time, will have had both teams poring over the video during the Christmas break looking for that ..read more

A brilliant game with numerous talking points. From a pure numbers perspective Glen had 23 shots producing 13 scores and 0.44 points per possession (ppp). Errigal Ciaran had 22 shots producing 13 scores and 0.41 ppp. Those numbers do not, generally, lead to a four-point win unless one of the oldest maxims in the game comes to the forefront – goals win games. Glen had four attempts on goal scoring 2 – 01 whilst also converting two (poor?) dropping shots into 1 – 01. Errigal Ciaran had two shots at goal scoring one and hammering the crossbar with the other. To rub salt into the goal attempt woun ..read more

Keys to the game Can Kilcoo break down that Kilmacud defence? Conversely can Kilmacud stay in their shape for ~65minutes and not fall victim to a late goal? If forced out how efficient can Kilcoo be on higher variance shooting? Can Kilmacud continue to get a higher percentage of their shots off from the central channel? Kickouts; will Kilmacud press and if they do will Kilcoo continue to force them in? What do Kilmacud do? A Kilcoo hammer blow awaits on anything that drops short of the 65. And finally, the referee. Kilcoo had 17 shots from frees in their three games. But gave up 20. If this t ..read more

Corofin’s attacking output, over the ~65 minutes, was very, very poor. Unless you have complete control of the ball – which is a very rare occurrence – 0.24 points per possession (ppp) will not win any game. (I have completed four county finals from 2021 – the winning team’s ppp were 0.41, 0.34, 0.44 and 0.38 here) But even that lens is flattering. When Mountbellew scored their goal in the 35th minute, to go 1 – 09 to 0 – 03 up, Corofin had just 18 possessions (I say “just” as Mountbellew had 25) but produced a meagre four (four!) shots. Had they maintained that trajectory for the whole game ..read more

Kickouts are a huge element of any game. Where keepers kick them to, who gains possession, and how, and what teams do with those possessions. Prime example being last year when Dublin outkicked the Kerry press by picking out Brian Howard on the sideline and then setting up McCaffrey’s goal. The interest in kickouts (as with most things!) tends to peak when Mayo are involved. The overarching sense in the build-up to this final is that David Clarke’s kickouts can be “gotten at”. So in the best traditions of the blog let us preview the kickout battle on Saturday by reviewing what has happened pre ..read more

This piece started out as a simple question – who is the best free taker? Just like reviewing the impact of short kickouts however that simple question opens up differing layers of complexities. So before we can answer that original simple question we need to disentangle the complexity, by understanding the various components, and then put it all back together again. (see note1) Historic returns Frees (for this piece 45s are considered free kicks) have produced a relatively stable return for the past number for years though there was a step up in 2017 that has been maintained. The numbers inv ..read more

Short kickouts. The bane of every traditionalist and subject of more opprobrium than steps, refereeing inconsistencies and red card appeals. Yet their prevalence continues to grow increasing from 46.7% of all kickouts in 2017 to 50.0% in 2019. That equates to a quarter of all possessions in a match. So why, given that opprobrium, do teams persist with them? And do they work?   Why go short? Short kickouts give a team possession (see Note1). And possession has been King of late with the average number of team possessions during a match dropping from 99.4 a game in 2015 to 90.3 in 2019. A r ..read more

This is the third game in the historic series (the 1985 All Ireland final between Kerry & Dublin can be found here whilst game4 of the 1991 Leinster series between Dublin and Meath can be found here) and a few observations highlighted in those games still hold true. The game was different. The component parts – kickouts, fielding, shooting – were the same, and the current metrics we have for measuring them are probably a fair comparison, but the overarching principles that underlined how teams approached the game were different. Very different. Possession was not as important as it is now ..read more

A high level overview shows an incredibly close game that, on chances alone, Ballyboden edged. They had 21 shots, with an Expected return of 0 – 14; Kilcoo produced 20 shots expected to return 1 – 10. They were created off very similar Attack Rates (78% apiece), Shot Rates (68% v 69%) and Conversion Rates (52% v 50%). And yet Ballyboden were scrambling at the end trying to claw back a five point deficit with ten minutes to go. How did Ballyboden return a similar Conversion Rate to that of Kilcoo, off roughly the same number of shots, but find themselves in that hole? In large part due to thei ..read more

When reviewing games here we rarely reference the weather (except for last year’s Ulster club final) – mainly because the games covered are intercounty Championship played in the best of weather on (mainly) perfectly maintained pitches. This wasn’t the case here. There was a very strong wind down the pitch, the rain came and went throughout the game leading to a greasy ball and the ground was dead and heavy. All of which led to difficult handling conditions, placing numerous players under huge pressure, as well as changing the normal shooting zones. A quick visual on how the conditions affecte ..read more