Dineen turns to numbers game
Interesting. The speaker was Ivan Dineen of Munster. A playing component of the organisation rather than a number-cruncher in the back office, though. Why’s he so interested in the business of rugby?
“I’m doing a masters degree in economics and my advisor suggested that rugby and the economics of rugby would be an interesting topic.”
True enough. At first Dineen inclined towards the economics of one training base for the province, Cork or Limerick, but events overtook that project when Munster selected Limerick. Now he’s looking at a lengthy report which will investigate the reasons why people come to games — and why they don’t.
“It’s going to be a big report on the various factors which feed into attendance — who the team is playing, the weather, the number of tries scored coming up to that fixture — a lot of options like that all feeding into attendance. For instance, the number of internationals who were playing in that particular game might be a factor in people deciding whether or not to go to a game so I go digging for that information.”
Dineen points out that Munster do a lot of work in this regard already: “Now it’s not like the lads there aren’t crunching the numbers. They’ve done certain things, like testing what would happen financially if they switched a random group of four games in Thomond Park to Musgrave Park, that kind of thing.
“I’m not sure if they’ve done it in the way I’ve been looking at, which is to look at how this trends over 10 years, for instance. There’s not a lot of academic literature on this, there are some papers on competition balance, and one on the economic efficiency of the Canterbury Academy, but there wouldn’t be a huge amount of history-trending in a rugby club.
“There’s some information on soccer clubs, but the scale of that — jersey sales, stadium capacity — is so much bigger that it’s difficult to relate it to rugby. And the fact that rugby’s only been professional since 1995 doesn’t help because there isn’t a huge amount of data.”
As he says, though, you’ve got to avoid giving people ticket fatigue.
“You’d be thinking of other ways to get people to buy tickets, but as [Munster chief executive] Garret [Fitzgerald] says, sometimes it can feel saturated, so you drive at a particular sector of people.
“That’s why I’m pointing to what would work in Cork, which is a GAA stronghold, not in terms of TV advertising as much as sending people to schools like Coláiste Chriost Rí, to attract people who might be sitting on the fence.
“I think if you could get those people interested you’d get numbers rising, though that would be more a medium- to long-term plan.”
Nobody Asked Me, But . . . the great Jimmy Cannon was the man who thought up the sportswriter’s easy outlet — a series of disconnected, random musings on various subjects when the inspiration for a whole column just won’t flow.
Many thanks, Jim. I’d raise a glass at Toots Shor’s old place in thanks for an easy get-out but, of course, Shor’s bar disappeared decades ago. I just thought I’d drop this into this morning’s column to give fair warning in advance that when I can’t find something to work up a faux-outrage about, I’ll be leaning heavily on Jimmy’s old formula.
Not that you asked me, but...
It’s the little things. The middle-aged couple in the Waterford colours that yours truly passed on his way down to the dressing room in Semple Stadium yesterday had that exasperated-exhausted look familiar to anyone who’s ever been at a game their county has lost heavily.
The final whistle was still echoing around the ground and they certainly didn’t look ready for the kind of banter that a well-oiled opposition supporter brings to the table. The lad in his early 20s with the Clare top was trying to grab their attention as they stood up to exit, but they were having none of it.
You had to admire the dignified silence they were putting on despite his attempts to grab their sleeves; the way they were looking up at the now-static scoreboard, as if somehow another couple of Waterford goals might magically materialise.
And still the Clare lad was reaching out. Eventually the crowd thinned a little and they prepared to make their getaway, down the steps and out the tunnel to home.
The Clare lad spoke: “Excuse me.”
The pair turned around: “You left your car keys on the seat,” he said, handing them over with a beery smile.
Paudie Kissane: Improvements in running technique can aid training.
It’s all business this Monday. When Paudie Kissane went to Brunel University in West London to study sports science, his qualification helped when it came to his own primary sporting outlet, playing football for Cork.
But performance, pure and simple, was then and is now a major obsession for Kissane. He’s running camps this summer for kids but it’s not just a matter of a few drills and a t-shirt at the end.
“It’s a chance for them to start their holidays with a bang,” says Kissane.
“We’re focusing a lot on performance, on how kids run, for instance. When I was a kid we just ran, whatever way you liked, obviously, and it’s something I’ve always wondered about that. Now I’m in a position to pass on a few tips.
“Running is like any skill. You can break it down into various parts and then put those parts back together to help someone run better.
“The younger you get someone the better — it’s like any other skill in that way too, it’s harder to teach someone who’s in their mid-twenties how to pick up a particular skill for a game because they may have bad habits built up at that stage. That’s not as much of a factor with younger kids.”
So with the running...
“You don’t do what coaches traditionally do with running, which is just to say to kids, ‘run away there’. You get them to walk, to get their co-ordination right and take it from there. It’s an approach that takes basic steps, if you’ll pardon the pun.
“Ankle mobility, for instance, is a big issue now in sports performance. Depending on how your body is, you may need mobility in your ankle to perform at your best, but you also need stability in your knee for your leg to function properly. If you don’t have sufficient mobility in your ankle, then, your body could find a way to give out somewhere else as a way of compensating for the stresses being put on it elsewhere.”
Through insufficient ankle mobility?
“That’s it. But it’s rarely just one thing that goes wrong when someone gets injured. Everything works together in your system, so improvements as well as injuries can have a knock-on effect elsewhere. Improving your ankle mobility makes your running more efficient, that makes your training more efficient, and everything improves as a result.”
*For more, drop an email to pkathletedevandperformance@gmail.com or call 087 7600658
