Michael Moynihan: Why I don't make predictions

Mon, 28 Jun, 2021 - 06:30

The arrival of the intercounty championships has a lot to recommend it — events, content, personalities, distraction — but not everything is bathed in a warm glow.

Last week, for instance, a pal asked me about Waterford versus Clare.

“Waterford are missing some big players,” said this pal.

“But then Clare are without Shane O’Donnell. In last year’s game Waterford were well on top, but if you take the league form of both teams this year there’s not much in it...”

The conversation stalled while I picked some foreign matter out of an open wound in my forehead, or some similar distraction, but the end game was inevitable, and soon we reached the point where he asked the question.

“Who do you fancy to win?”

This brought us to an uncomfortable place: the land of prediction — more uncomfortable for me than him, admittedly. Thus my response: “I don’t make predictions.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” I said, “Allow me to present the case against making predictions, because they’re hopelessly compromised by your own biases ahead of time.

“First, take the availability heuristic. You just mentioned players who are out or doubtful: because their fitness to play is the most recent fact available to us, it overshadows other factors we should consider.

“You clearly feel certain players are more influential than others and therefore can affect the outcome disproportionately. That makes a nonsense of any pretence to objectivity in your prediction.

“Second, you’re also suffering from confirmation bias in the way you framed your position. You clearly believe Waterford had the upper hand when these teams played each other and want that belief confirmed by another Waterford victory in this game. So that bias is having a strong effect on how you view this game as well. See?”

“You’re overdoing it a bit,” he said, “I know you don’t enjoy predicting games, and given your track record, with good reason—” With good reason? “—but it’s your job, after all. It could hardly hurt to have a guess, right?”

“Ha, you poor simple fool,” I said (I don’t have many friends, as you can probably tell from exchanges like this), “Little do you know.

“I’ve successfully avoided the Dunning-Kruger effect when it comes to my own biases: I don’t parade my ignorance of matters I know little about, such as the state of fitness of certain named players, and therefore I don’t expose my theories and opinions to the open air.

“By the same token I also resist the halo effect at all costs. Just because some players have been kind enough to take a call from me, thus doing me a favour, I don’t overestimate their significance or ability because of that past relationship.”

“I don’t know, there are certain players I’ve noticed who are above criticism.”

“Incorrect,” I said, “That’s your own projection bias at work, a prejudice you seem incapable of overcoming.

“Just because we both felt the same that one time about the Dublin footballers, you seem to feel that we’re going agree on every sports concept going forward, and we’re not.

“I’ve made my peace with my stance of not predicting, and I’m happy to continue it regardless of how others feel. It’s called independence of mind, a chara. You should try it sometime.”

At this point a sly look crawled across my pal’s face: “Well, you say independence of mind. Are you sure it isn’t just the sunk cost fallacy — you’ve invested so much of yourself into your non-predicting stance that you can’t cut your losses now and take up another stance? Because that would truly be a case of someone being a slave to their biases.”

I now have a vacancy for one (1) pal.

CVs to the email address below.

Ice hockey ahead of the times with helmet advertising

A development rolling in from overseas: helmet advertising in the National Hockey League looks likely to stay, which sounds like the most obvious notion you could imagine, while also being a revolutionary idea within the context of American sport.

That’s because American team sports tend to be oddly resistant to the idea of team logos on jerseys — I use the word ‘oddly’ because it seems an obvious revenue stream for organisations always on the look out for money, but the resistance seems to be based on a reluctance to have an advertiser or sponsor logo on a top that’s bigger than the team’s own logo.

Not a measurement most sports on this side of the Atlantic would pass.

Change may be in the air, however. Earlier this year NHL bosses allowed helmet advertising to help offset some of the financial losses suffered because of the pandemic, and teams quickly got their sponsors’ logos onto those helmets (kudos to the Arizona Coyotes here — for home games, the Mountain America logo was worn, and for away games it was another sponsor’s logo, that of Dignity Health).

It now appears that those NHL bosses will allow the helmets will continue advertising, which is hardly surprising. The question which will hardly surprise any reader is simple — when are we going to see this in hurling?

One size doesn’t fit all in sub debate

More than one inter-county manager made a convincing case last week for the retention of the seven substitutions option for the championship, instead of the five now available to them.

The facts are hard to counter — players have been picking up injuries in the run-up to the championship and the truncated preparation time is being blamed, so giving managers a chance to ease the burden on players by introducing seven players makes sense.

Unless...

What about teams which aren’t as deep on the bench, to put it that way, as the top sides in the country?

In that case would five substitutions suit the weaker sides better because it would give the stronger teams less of a chance to exploit quality all the way down to jersey number 22 on the panel?

The counterargument to the preceding isn’t just the player welfare issue: there’s a sense that you’re penalising teams for having strong panels and more players at the top standard than their opponents.

But something that jumps out for me is the most obvious point — how did we ever manage with just three substitutions in a game?

Eimear Ryan’s new novel is making waves

I suppose by now anyone who reads this corner of the paper even semi-regularly knows I have a taste in non-fiction books that often runs to politics and social history and class and (in the broadest sense) economics, so news of The Shadow of the Mine: Coal and the End of Industrial Britain was welcome.

Any account of the decline of the mining industry in Britain over 40 years — and the disastrous results for the communities involved and the country, or countries, overall — would find favour with me.

Also, and apologies for being late to the table on this, but best of luck to Eimear Ryan of this parish with her new novel, Holding Her Breath. There is a copy in the house if I could only smuggle it away from its current reader, who is recommending it to all and sundry.

Contact: michael.moynihan@examiner.ie