Bringing GAA analysis into 21st century
The idea for the series arose at the Web Summit a couple of years ago, when Damien Comolli, once of Liverpool and Tottenham, gave a terrific talk about the role of data and analytics in signing players, which included how goals in the top Dutch professional league are evaluated against goals in the English Premier League — whether a player scoring 30 goals in the former could be reliably expected to score 10, for instance, in the latter.
Comolli referred to a player he helped sign, Luis Suarez, specifically in this context (though not, as the wag next to me whispered, Andy Carroll). The Web Summit is just the location for proselytising about computer-generated assistance in all facets of modern life, of course. Based on Comolli’s evangelising work, I looked into the GAA’s adoption of data and analytics across player evaluation, fitness work, and medical developments, and after about 30 seconds, found no end to it.
