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Dublin won by the smallest of margins on Saturday night but Monaghan have a lot to be pleased with. Many teams don’t get this close and yes it is the league but playing Dublin in Croke Park is never an easy game no matter what the competition is.

Dublin’s Kickouts

Having been involved with inter-county teams there is always the discussion to stick or twist against Dublin’s kickouts. Between the accuracy and speed, pushing up feels like the riskier option, easier to sit back let them have it and meet them at half-way. Some teams try the half-way measure of splitting defenders (see Mayo last week) but not Monaghan this week. They pushed up and went man-to-man.

This was typical of Monaghan’s shape on Cluxton’s kickouts. If Dublin get clean ball here there are 5 Monaghan player’s out of the game. But that’s the risk and you have to balance that with just gifting Dublin the ball.

Rather than being content to make sure their own man didn’t get the ball you can see 2 Monaghan men racing to be involved should there be a breaking ball.

Earlier we can see again Monaghan have committed 6 men inside Dublin’s 45 but their willingness to get to the breaking ball was surprisingly better than Dublin’s.

Once the ball is going long Monaghan get 5 players to the breaking ball, wile some of the Dublin player’s stand and watch.

Monaghan had good success with this strategy. Dublin ‘only’ won 67% of their own kickouts. Many other teams have tried and failed to stop the relentless possession Dublin get from kickouts and winning 33% of their kickouts is a decent day. When we look at the return Monaghan got from the 8 kickouts we can see how valuable it was.

1. Point (great goal chance)
2. Point
3. Foul Against
4. Hand Pass Goal
5. Point
6. Post (great goal chance)
7. Point
8. Point

5 Points & 2 great goal chances is an excellent return, especially in a 1 point game.

The Risk

Pressing Dublin’s Kickouts does come at a cost. In general Monaghan handled this very well and Dublin didn’t have many fast breaks but there was once where Phily McMahon was allowed drift off his man

and if there was a better ball at the end, well this is what Dublin do, a sucker punch of goal.

Dublin’s Shooting

All shots are not created equal. Monaghan out shot Dublin by 32 : 26, no mean feat in Croke Park. However Dublin’s chances were from a much closer range. Using 30m as ‘Close Range’ we can examine very quickly the difference between 2 teams shots.

Monaghan took 23 shots from play but only 9 (39%) were from the Close Range

Dublin took 17 shots from play but 9 (53%) were from the Close Range.

This means that although Monaghan had more shots, questions must be asked as to whether the shot selection was right. Dublin were more selective and less willing to shot from outside the Close zone where the return is a lot less. For Monaghan to truly push Dublin they will need to improve their shot selection.

Dublin’s Defensive Shape

Against Mayo Dublin pushed up a lot and were willing to leave the Mayo full-forward line a little more room. However we did see a shift on Saturday night. Conor McManus is one of the most dangerous forwards in the game and Dublin gave him ample respect with a more permanent sweeper (yes Dublin use a sweeper). In this example, following a Dublin turnover, Monaghan break and Ciaran Duffy is afforded much more space than any Mayo player was last week because Cian O’Sullivan isn’t sure to push up or is more worried about McManus inside.

Cian O’Sullivan clearly had this job on his mind throughout the game. Just before half-time Monaghan win a line-ball on the Dublin 45. Cian O’Sullivan is clearly signalling at Paul Flynn to take his man.

Flynn pushes up as O’Sullivan races back to the sweeper role. Monaghan play the ball backwards and then look for McManus inside.

Except who has arrived!

O’Sullivan reads the intercept and Dublin win a free to escape the pressure.

I’m not sure if the lack of pressing by Dublin was deliberate or not. But in the last 2 games we have seen Dublin play 2 different styles. Against Mayo they pushed high up the field and were willing to leave themselves a little more exposed. Against Monaghan we see a more defensive approach with a clear sweeper in place. McManus is special and kicked some amazing scores. Dublin will be happy enough with the win but I think Monaghan, especially with the 2 goal chances can count themselves unlucky not to escape with a win here.

Dublin get a lot of praise for their attacking football, stemming often from their ability to start quick fast attacks from their own kickouts. However, Dublin’s work-rate and skill in defending is overlooked and as a result undervalued.

Dublin defend differently to most other teams. They press high and with numbers, they commit as high up the pitch as necessary to win the ball back as close to the opposition goal as they can. That can leave vulnerabilities when you pass that first and even second line of defenders but when they get their pressing game working it’s very difficult to stop.

Take this example after 30 seconds in the Mayo game. Dublin turn the ball over but instead of falling back and defending on the half-way or even close to their own goal, the Dublin players take position at the point they lost it. In the pic below you can see that at least 8 players are committed to pressing the kicker.

And it’s not just that they are looking to press man-on-man, you can see the player(5) is pressing space, he wants to fill that large bit of space in the middle of the field, regardless of the fact there is no Mayo player in that space. From the resulting lineball Dublin win a scoreable free almost immediately.

Dublin win a very impressive 70+% of their own kickouts, but the more startling statistic is they win 55% of the oppositions kickouts on average. Dublin commit, to winning the opposition Kickout. It’s not a case of trying to split defenders or anything of the sorts. Throughout the game they were willing to go man-on-man on Mayo’s 21. This is something most other teams don’t do as often or as well as Dublin.

The image below is the first kickout of the game. It’s 5 v 6 in favour of Mayo

Compare this to the Dublin Kickout following a great Mayo goal chance in the 22^nd minute. At the time Regan strikes the ball at goal there are 7 Mayo players inside the Dublin 21. A few seconds later the image below shows how easy it was for Dublin to win possession from the Kickout and move the ball up field.

From the following 2 passes you can see the Mayo players get so easily taken out of the game. They are neither pushing up nor falling back and as a result they get passed out as if they are cones on a training pitch. Dublin are afforded so much space and get to the Mayo 45 without any pressure at all.

And this wasn’t an isolated incident in just the 6^th minute Dublin get out so easily and Denis Bastick reaches the half-way and kicks an easy ball into the Mayo 45 without ever facing pressure from Mayo.

Compare this to what Donal Vaughan was met with from the first kickout of the game.

Or after 9 minutes when Mayo when a free in their own 45 compare how far up the pitch Dublin are willing to commit 11 players.

Very different styles and tactics between the two teams. Dublin are happy to not just go man for man, because that’s not actually what they do, but an overall team commitment to press high up the pitch where possible and win the ball back as quickly and as close to the oppositions goal as possible.

It’s not about Man on Man.

As proof of that take a look at the following image.  Ciaran Kilkenny is tracking a Mayo player as Aidan O’Shea cuts across the pitch. Instead of following ‘his man’. Kilkenny puts the breaks on, and although makes a very minimal attempt to tackle O’Shea he slows him down enough for his marker to cause a dispossession. When Aidan O’Shea drops the ball it’s Ciaran Kilkenny who picks it up and launches another Dublin attack. I think in most other teams Kilkenny tracks that runner no matter where he goes, but not with Dublin.

Again to contrast this with the Mayo style; as Dublin win possession back inside their own half look how far off the Mayo player’s are. Not pressing but some have even turned their back and are simply just running back.

At one stage in the 1^st half Mayo get a free just inside their 21. 30 seconds later after a series of passes they are themselves turnedover, having almost never been outside their 21!! To play Dublin you need to deal with this sort of pressure.

The high press game comes at a cost and at times it can be high risk. If you commit that many numbers to press the opposition, you need to make sure you get pressure on the man carrying the ball. As soon as that doesn’t happen you leave yourself vulnerable to a long ball that can take out all but your back-line.

Dublin failed to get enough pressure on the ball carrier following a turnover and had 2 v 2 inside. There is cover arriving and Jack McCaffrey gets back to break up the play but on a dry day where the ball sticks first time – this is a vulnerability.

This high risk, high press game showed an earlier vulnerability. As you can see the next image is from the 2^nd minute of the game. Dublin are pressing, it’s not really about their man – more about getting pressure on the ball. But in doing that they have left 2 Mayo men free. If the ball carrier can get their head up a 20 yard pass would take 7 Dublin men out of the game.

Later in the half we see Dublin get turnedover on the ½ way. The pressure system means in 2 quick hand passes suddenly Mayo see a very different field in front of them.

Suddenly they are in behind, running full speed against a Dublin full back line. This happened much too infrequently for Mayo. Will other teams be able to exploit that high-press? Dublin looked excellent at it, but it will leave gaps behind. There players knew when to push up and when they needed to hold their position. This is not a skill I’ve seen in many other teams.

Monaghan will no doubt defend in numbers, they are unlikely to play a high-press game, but the big test will be how they cope with the Dublin press. Will they be able to beat the initial high-press and get the Dublin team turned?

In Rugby there tends to be just one place kicker. This weekend Johnny Sexton will take most of the kicks regardless of the side of the pitch the occur. Looking at Johnny Sexton’s kicks between 5m and 15m from the touchline on either side of the pitch there is a difference in his success rate. From the left hand side of the pitch(the ‘more natural side’ for a right footed kicker) he converts 69% and from the opposite side converts 59%. All other things considered it does seem the side of the pitch matters to Johnny.

What about Gaelic Football. Does it matter and if so does it matter the same for free’s as it does from open play?

In this example I looked at a sample of 5,000+ shots. I wanted to see if Gaelic Footballers have a natural side, if so what is the size of the effect.

All Shots

Firstly I grouped all shots (from play and placed balls) together and simply looked at the success % for each side. Each side is made up of approx 40 meters leaving 10 meters in the centre, which was ignored here.

Left Side (More natural for Right Footers)

• Left Foot Success 42%
• Right Foot Success 51%

Right Side (More natural for Left Footers)

• Left Foot Success 45%
• Right Foot Success 40%

There is definitely a difference. The more natural side does seem to have an effect and seems to effect Right Footers more than Left Footers. Left Footers only drop 3% when kicking from the ‘wrong side’, while Right Footers drop 11%

From Play

Left Side (More natural for Right Footers)

• Left Foot Success 43%
• Right Foot Success 42%

Right Side (More natural for Left Footers)

• Left Foot Success 45%
• Right Foot Success 37%

Again we see a very similar trend here. The effect is there for both Right & Left footers but seems to affect the Righties a lot more.

From Placed Ball’s

Left Side (More natural for Right Footers)

• Left Foot Success 34%*
• Right Foot Success 67%

Right Side (More natural for Left Footers)

• Left Foot Success 68%
• Right Foot Success 57%

Definitely an effect. I wouldn’t think the effect is that great for Left Footers. So few Left footed free are attempted from the left hand-side that I would suggest this 34% is because of the low sample size. However there is definitely an effect on the other side of the pitch. We see an 11% swing just accounting for the foot used. I have ignored distance from goal in this example but I simply wanted to see does the side of the pitch and the foot used make a difference. And it does… certainly if you are right footed.

2 Free Takers?

In the rugby example above Johnny kicking from the ‘wrong side’ might still be better than the best left footed kicker in the Ireland team. It’s not simply a matter of saying any left-footer beats a right footer.   If someone is good enough and the numbers hold up maybe the side of the pitch doesn’t matter. So let’s take a look at the most regular free-takers in our game over the last 5 years.

The below table is the accuracy for any free-taker in my database that has attempted over 50 frees (regardless of the side of the pitch).

11 of the 16 were better on their more natural side. There is definitely something to look at in terms of the Donegal free-takers. Both seem to really struggle on the wrong side but for someone like Cillian O’Connor it seems to make no difference, he is the best free-taker regardless of the side of the pitch the infraction appears.

In summary I think there is merit in looking at what side of the pitch and what foot the player likes to lose but don’t lose sight of the individuals. It’s not a one size fits all answer.

Yesterday I published some top scorer charts for the last 3 seasons. You can see them at the bottom of this article. I also appended the question can you really still claim Mayo don’t have a marquee forward? Needless to say this got people animated. The general jist was that Cillian O’Connor get’s loads of handy free’s, he doesn’t to it in the big games and if I removed all the early Connacht games I would see something different. So I took a look.

I’m not sure about being this reductionist with the data. But to answer the doubters I said I would take a look. The data looks at just games played in the All Ireland Series (1/4’s onwards) from 2013 – 2015. It takes the actual points scored by that player and what we would expect an ‘average’ inter-county player to score given the same shots. This means that a + number indicates that player scored more than the ‘average’ player would have given the same opportunities and a – number is the opposite.

I am only looking at shots from play – to remove all those ‘handy’ free’s and for ease of viewing I’ve taken the Top 6 and Bottom 6 as a comparison.

*Note the ExpP model is based on games I have analysed. In all cases for comparisons between ExpP and Actual Points  I have used the actual points scored in games analysed rather than their season total across all games. 

Better Than Average?

So from this data and based on my model. Cillian O’Connor has added 3.5 points above what an average inter-county forward would get given the same opportunities. Not the Top guy in town but certainly beating a lot of others. In fact when you compare him to some of the names in the Bottom 6, up pop the names of some marquee forwards. It is surprising to find James O’Donoghue here. He has shot worse than the average inter-county forward in these games.

Just to note when we look just at placed ball (excl pens) Cillian O’Connor comes out 2nd. Adding 3.9 above expected.

There is a lot more to forward play than just shooting – but based on these figures I still find it difficult to say that Mayo don’t have a top forward, but I’m sure there are plenty out there who will disagree.

For reference here is the last 3 seasons worth of Top Scorer charts.

I built this little widget for looking at a selection of Player Game Stats over the last few season. (Best not viewed on a phone). Be sure to check out my blog post explaining what this all might mean.

 

As the new season rolls around, no doubt most inter-county managers are busy compiling back-room teams and scouring the county for new talent. This year will see a spate of new managers taking the helm and everyone is keen to impress, promising everyone a fair crack of the whip again. I am interested in how much that change happens at better or worse counties. Or maybe it’s simply that successful teams don’t see to the need to change, as much, as less successful counties. However at what point does all this change mean that building anything sustainable becomes impossible. What about long-term planning?

I wanted to take a look at the size of particular squads and how that might have changed over the last few seasons. Do successful teams have bigger squads or smaller squads? Do they use more or less talent than others?

Data: The data is from 2012 – 2015 and I have used a *sample of counties for illustration. Championship games only.

The first graph shows simply the number of players used by each county in the last 4 years.

 

Donegal at the top seems like no surprise, but then look at the 5. Of the last 16 provincial titles available, those 5 teams have won 15 of them!! (Cork won their’s in 2012).

So is squad size really an issue? Is strength in depth as important as we think? Should instead a county be looking to develop a core group of players.

There will be timing issues. Maybe Cork & Tyrone are just at a particular stage in their team’s life-cycle, but it is interesting to note that they have really struggled to be successful on the pitch and in that time have found themselves using 47 and 55 players over the last 4 seasons. When you look at the sheer number of players teams like Antrim, Carlow & Derry have used and consider that these counties do not have long championship seasons it really is staggering to think about that level of player turnover.

Core Players

So perhaps total players doesn’t tell the full story. Mangers might be happy to throw some young players on when a game is won or they know the season is about to end. The next graph looks at Core Players – those that have started at least 1 game (in blue) and those players who have only featured as substitutes (in orange).

 

Donegal definitely jump out here as having by far the smallest Core group. Only 25 players have started a game for Donegal since 2012. But again we need to ask – is that important? While the other (successful) counties have used more, it’s not like they have used double the amount. We see a very similar pattern to the first image with some exceptions.

Clare seem to have a core group of 33 players but have use 14 different subs, perhaps suggesting that while the core has remained relatively steady there is high turnover in the fringe players. Wexford and Wicklow look to fall into a similar pattern.

Again Cork and Tyrone seem to have big squads but have also used many different starters and combinations. Hardly the sign of a settled squad or team.

Big Squad v Small Squad

Do successful teams have small squads because they are small or are they small squads because they are successful. That question will take me a little longer to answer but I’m not sure I buy the idea of more is better. Despite all the talk of the importance of a big squad it seems the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. Getting a good group of core players who you can work with over a consistent period of time, but not so small you burn them out.

McGuinness often spoke of working with teams in a 4 year cycle, similar to Olympic athletes. But how many mangers are given that time? So as managers contemplate shaking things up for the season ahead – they need to ask at what cost does the shake up come?

Teams used in sample: ANTRIM, DERRY, TYRONE, CARLOW, CAVAN, CORK, DOWN, CLARE, KILDARE, ARMAGH, WICKLOW, WEXFORD, MAYO, DUBLIN, MONAGHAN, KERRY, DONEGAL

Yesterday I wrote an article about an expected points (ExpP) model I had created for football. This is not a new concept. Dontfoul has a weighting model, there are numerous examples for most field sports and Golf has a strokes gained metric. They all work off the same basic principle. How much better is player X than the average player. Granted this comes with a lot of question’s about who this imaginary average player is, but the results of these models can be fascinating.

As the All Stars list has been announced and the team will be selected along with player of the year there is at lest 3 positions where we don’t have to rely solely on opinion. The forwards. Sure we can turn to the Top scorer chart, but what does that really tell us? The structure of the championship means it is virtually impossible for anybody but a small group of players to win this. Some teams play 7 games while 16 teams will only feature twice.

Here it is anyway. The Top Scoring Chart for 2015

What is interesting is that we can now compare these players to what the average inter-county player would have scored given the same opportunities. So did Bernard Brogan score 39 points this year because he plays he get’s easy chances, because he is supremely good or a bit of both? Likewise for Cillian O’Connor, his his score total dominated by handy frees?

Below is the top 20 players based on Points above Expected (Shots gained if you are a golf fan).

Bernard Brogan, not only scored 39 points and won an All Ireland title, but compared to every other player he added 8 points more than the average footballer. To contrast this with his season in 2014 shows the value of these metrics. In 2014 he scored 24 points, not a bad return, and one that puts him in the top 10 scorers for that year. However an average footballer would have scored 27 points given the same opportunities. So in fact that’s a -3 point in 2014.

Same player, in 2 consecutive seasons being in the Top 10 scorers but the numbers telling a very different story.

For reference here is the Top 10 in 2014.

*Note the ExpP model is based on games I have analysed. In all cases for comparisons between ExpP and Actual Points  I have used the actual points scored in games analysed rather than their season total across all games. 

Football (and Hurling to an even bigger extent) operates in the universe of small numbers. Dublin & Kerry have played each other in just 25 Championship games in the GAA’s 125+ year history. In a very similar period the Yankees have played the Red Sox 2,130 times!! Comparing era’s and teams in that historical rivalry carries much more weight than the one on this island.

Every year football team’s seasons seem to be defined by one or two very small, possible random, events. In 2015 alone there have been some great examples of this;

Westmeath were 8 points down at half-time in a seemingly one-sided Leinster semi-final. Meath capitulated and Westmeath went on to win by 4. The first time the have ever beaten their near rivals. The following day’s papers were full of headlines like; Tom Cribbin’s tough love pays off for Westmeath, following is very public criticism of his players during the national league. This all despite the media being heavily critical of the ‘rant’ at the time, in hindsight it seemed they were happy to change their mind. By most accounts Westmeath’s season was heralded as a success despite one second half performance and going on to only score a further 13 points in their remaining 2 games.

Fermanagh another team being picked as a ‘weaker’ county punching above it’s weight this year, beat Antrim twice, granted had a very good win against an out-of-sorts Roscommon team and had a moral victory against Dublin.

At the other end of the scale Cork had a terrible year, resulting in the resignation of their manager. Despite pushing Kerry to the pin of their collar in Killarney, Kerry required a lucky inspirational point in the dying minutes to force a replay. Cork couldn’t seem to raise themselves for the replay or the qualifier game against Kildare 7 days later.

Dealing in these tiny sample sizes makes it very difficult to separate the signal from the noise. How much of that Westmeath 2nd half display was down to a managerial rant 3 months previous, or tactical changes at the break? Was Fionn Fitzgerald’s point lucky or calm execution of skill honed on the fields in the Kingdom.?

Expected Points (ExpP)

Shots is perhaps the easiest performance characteristic to attempt to separate the signal from the noise. To do this we can examine what the ‘average’ footballer would expect given the same shot location. This metric is similar to those found in most sports. Soccer has expected goal metrics and Basketball has an Expected field goal metric as just 2 examples.

I have broken the pitch into 5 x 5 square zones. Giving 13 zones long and 18 zones wide (234 zones in total). We then take the average return (Scores / Attempts) for each zone and work out what the expected return for the ‘average’ footballer from that zone would be.

Because of the difference between shots from play and placed ball we need to create 2 set’s of ExpP. Actually we create another one for Penalty’s.

Let’s look at an example; Taking a free in front of the goal and on the 21m line (zone 5;8) gives a 100% expected return for the ‘average’ footballer. We would not expect anybody to miss from here. If, hypothetically, a team took 10 frees from this position we would expect them to score 10 points.

If we look at the same zone but from play we would expect the ‘average’ footballer to score 50% of the time. If our hypothetical team took 10 shots from this location we would expect them to score 5 points.

We can plot the shot location of every shot for each team – we add all the expected returns to see what a team was expected to score based on the chances they created.

In any one game a team will score more or less than the ExpP but this is randomness – the ExpP should give us a more accurate reflection of what the true value of the chances created was.

Fionn Fitzgerald

So to bring us back the the Fionn Fitzgerald shot we can look at the true value of that shot. When I plot that shot it goes into zone 9;13. The average return from here is 27%!!. To put this another way; that shot only just over 1 in 4 times.The reason we like sport is because sometimes we don’t know what will happen and there are no second chances under the same conditions. Cometh the hour cometh the man and all that. The shot sails over the bar, Kerry live to fight another day, their manager becomes a tactical genius again and the show moves on. However Cork can count them somewhat unlucky based on that single event. If you pause the game at that point Cork are the overwhelming favourites every-time.

Donegal v Mayo

Let’s take a look at the model on a team level. If we take the recent game between Mayo and Donegal we can see what each team was likely to score based on the chances they created. Dealing with goals presents a slightly different problem than other sports with a success/failure scoring system. If a shot is taken inside the red zone (above) I am making (a possibly unrealistic) assumption that this was a goal scoring chance. For chances in these 12 zones I multiply the expected return x 3 to more accurately account for goal chances. This is not perfect but it’s a start.

Donegal: The model shows Donegal’s ExpP was 13.3 (they scored 11). That’s pretty close. The reason for the over estimation is probably that Donegal had 2 goal-scoring chances with an ExpP of 3.2 but took neither.

Mayo: The model shows Mayo’s ExpP was 17.3 (they scored 19). Again not very far off. The Lee Keegan goal brings the actual above the ExpP. My model assumes this is a shot for a point (as it falls outside the 12 goal scoring zones) so therefore underestimates the ExpP.

Just to check I looked at the Monaghan v Tyrone game.

Monaghan scored 14 (ExpP = 11.7). Shows just how off they were on the day. Even with a bit of luck they fell short.

Tyrone scored 15 (ExpP = 15.9). As good as Tyrone were on another day they could have scored slightly more.

Final Thoughts

This is only a starting point, in no way am I saying this is perfect. But it’s a hell of a lot better than spouting on again about desire and workrate.

 

It’s a squad game. Invariably if a team brings on a Sub and he scores a vital point we all hail the strength in depth of a squad. Donegal have too small a squad, the Dubs have an abundance of talent and Kerry’s bench is packed with All Stars. But how do teams use their squad and is there any truth to the cliché that it’s a squad game.

The average Squad size in 2015 is 25. Sure you have some variance. Sligo at 21 and just 8 subs used in their 3 games does seem low. Westmeath & Roscommon top the pile, having used 29 players each in their 4 games. What about the superior 7 counties?

In the first graph you will see that the number of players used is not all that different. Tyrone played 7 games which might explain their high number and Monaghan do look a couple of players short but the others; Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Kerry & Mayo are all very similar.

How Are they Used?

Ok so just because a team used X number of players doesn’t mean much on it’s own. The second image shows how many players have started every game and how many have played max game time.

The stand-out numbers  here is that just 5 Kerry players have started every game. This is half the number for Dublin, Cork, Donegal, Monaghan & Mayo. It really does show how willing Eamonn Fitzmaurice is to change his side from game-to-game (or does he just now know his best 15?). Only Sean Kavanagh played max game time for Tyrone! Tyrone managed to use a lot of different players giving them good game time, starts and still reach a semi-final.

Squad Depth?

What does squad depth really mean? Players used, starts, game-time? Or do we just weave a narrative after the fact?

 

There is so much talk about Dublin’s Kickouts I thought it would be worth sharing some data that people could explore. This visualization contains *some Dublin Kickouts from the last 2 seasons.

*TV companies don’t show all kickout locations, especially at the speed Cluxton kicks it out.