Staggering setback for team on upward curve

Over time it all tells. It might take time, or in hurling it might take games, as Eamon O’Shea pointed out in these pages last Saturday. 

“Obviously the more games you have, the more data you have,” he said putting his economics and statistical hat on.

“Lose three league games out of five, you’d say ‘[he’s a] bad [manager]’, but in an overall context you might need 15 or 20 games to establish that.”