Laptops level playing field

The stats men are back this weekend. Huddled over their Ipads and laptops in the stands, the shadowy figures bearing an uncanny resemblance to members of Kraftwerk.

When we say shadowy, there is nothing sinister about this breed. It’s just we don’t know much about them. In the backroom team acknowledgements, they are listed somewhere between the liaison officer and nowhere at all.

Yet they are intrinsic to the modern day inter-county operation. Every team has a team of them. Ray Boyne was a key component of the Dublin footballers’ 2011 All-Ireland success as were John Murphy and Eoin O’Neill with Cork the year before.