Spoofology or sound science...the differences are in the numbers
Today we’re having a look at how the GAA officially works out its own stats, and not surprisingly, we’re heading north to do so.
There’s a general feeling in the southern half of the country that the GAA in Ulster has been very proactive in terms of analysis and approach in recent years, and what the Ulster Council recently threw up on its website was equal parts illuminating and enviable.
The Council posted a statistical analysis of Antrim v Monaghan, but what was also noteworthy was the inclusion of context: the two counties’ numbers were put against those of other teams in the province, which fleshed out the story and offered lessons to take forward.
Take turnovers. For only about the 400th time we instance that chat with Joe Brolly earlier this year, where he insisted that the team with the fewest turnovers inevitably wins.
His fellow Northerners have taken a focus on that particular statistic and extrapolated in common-sense terms to offer a diagnosis to teams who come up short in games.
For instance, the split in possession was 54% in Monaghan’s favour, with Antrim collecting almost 46%, but as the compilers of the report pointed out, in itself that doesn’t guarantee victory or defeat. What it does, however, is help indicate where things are going wrong. If there’s little enough between the teams in terms of having the ball in hand, why did Antrim lose the game? Here’s where the turnovers come in. Antrim coughed the ball up 36 times in the game compared to Monaghan’s 29. Again, it’s not a significant difference until you break it down even further. Antrim lost the ball 11 times in the tackle compared to 4 times for Monaghan, and Antrim lost possession 14 times through kick passes compared to six for Monaghan.
Clearly Antrim had problems retaining the ball (tackle turnovers) and moving it accurately (kick pass turnovers). In turn, this negated their near-parity when it came to possession, and goes some way to explaining their poor scoring (they managed just six points).
Though Monaghan had a man sent off, they were twice as efficient at retaining the ball when they kicked it and in tackle situations they were three times more likely to retain the ball. It’s hardly surprising, then, that they were able to convert more of that possession to scores when they had the chance.
All of that is not to say they dominated the game. The Ulster Council experts point to a significant statistic which will no doubt dominate the attitude to training in the Monaghan camp for the next week or two. Though they managed 0-11 to their opponents’ 0-6, they had eight shots blocked or falling short compared to Antrim’s five.
Finally, before we leave the issue of turnovers, the Ulster Council also provided a breakdown of all the province’s teams when it comes to losing the ball.
Antrim led with 36 turnovers all in, while Monaghan come second with 29. All the other counties but one have between 25 and 27 turnovers to their credit. The exception: Cavan, with just 15. Whether it’s coincidence or not, Cavan also had the narrowest winning margin so far in Ulster, which suggests they’re operating at a high level of efficiency. It also marks them out as a team to watch.
