Kerry v Mayo: The things this All-Ireland final will turn on

TURNING POINTS: Dublin's Ross McGarry has a shot on goal saved by Kerry goalkeeper Shane Murphy during the All-Ireland semi-final. Pic: Dáire Brennan/Sportsfile.

The three key areas that will shape the outcome of Sunday's final will be the dominance on kickouts from Kerry, the Mayo high press and at the end of the day each side's conversion rate. 

Before we know what Mayo have planned for the Kerry kickout, it’s advantage Kerry from the data. They’ve retained 76% of kickouts compared to 56% for Mayo and on winning opposition kickouts, Kerry still out perform here 39% to 30%. 

If Mayo can outperform their average and win 40% of the Kerry kickouts this will put a dent in Kerry’s scoring output. 60% of Kerry’s score have come once they’ve gained possession from their own kickout with long kickouts accounting for 49% of these. 

It’s the efficiency of Kerry that explains why they are such a threat from the 69 long kickouts they’ve retained. From these they haven’t failed to cross the opposition 45 and have attempted 65 shots. By comparison, Mayo have only failed once to cross the opposition 45 from their 51 retained long kickouts, but have only attempted 35 shots.

One of the key reasons Mayo have found themselves in this year's final is their success on turnovers in open play. They’ve gone after the ball higher up the pitch than most and that has resulted this being their highest origin of possession prior to a score (47%). 

To highlight the difference in approaches between these two, Mayo have turned over the opposition 21 times from their own 45 towards the opposition goal, attempting 20 shots scoring 12 of these. A shot to turnover efficiency of 95% with turnover to score conversion of 57%. 

They’ve won a turnover inside their own '45' 66 times, attempting 47 shots and scoring 33 of these. Their efficiency on getting a shot away lowers to 71% with their turnover to score conversion also lower at 50%, showing if they can turn over the opposition before the opposition enter the 45, they will have a much higher chance of creating a shot. 

By contrast, Kerry have only turned over the opposition eight times from their own 45 towards the opposition goal. They’ve scored four times from the six shots attempted which is also very efficient in creating a shot but much lower in volume to that of Mayo.

Once Kerry win the ball back inside their 45 their scoring efficiency is much lower than their counterparts having had 42 turnovers which resulted in scoring 13 times from 29 shots. Compared to Mayo’s score efficiency of 50%, in this area Kerry’s is only at 31%.

The final piece of the puzzle is ultimately the most important: shot conversion. This is where both teams are evenly matched. To date their conversion in the Championship has been Kerry 62%, Mayo 61%. Mayo attempted more shots 157 to 151, scoring 5-20-70 (125) v Kerry’s return of 11-17-65 (132). Where this battle might swing is how both defences have performed against opposition shots. 

Kerry have faced fewer shots (151) than Mayo (165) but it has been Mayo’s impressive defensive pressure that has seen them only concede 49% of these 4-11-66 (100) compared to that of Kerry’s 58% 2-16-69 (107). This pressure on the shot taker can be seen from the breakdown below. Kerry would want to see an improvement when they only apply medium pressure on the kicker as the opposition conversion rate sits at 70%. Mayo applied high pressure on opposition shots 69 times compared to 54 by Kerry.

If the game was played on spreadsheets, this one is weighted in favour of Kerry but this isn’t Football Manager and once you add in the variables such as the occasion, the wind, momentum shifts, the nerves and of course the 16th man, averages can be dismissed when we all become experts in hindsight.