2010 shooting Stats

I’ve pontificated on here, on Hoganstand, in the pub and elsewhere about the lack of stats on GAA games so last year I decided to try and do something about it. I had intended to do the same for 2011 but deleted the Sky+ this afternoon as I just don’t have time to do it properly. Rather than chucking the data out I’ll dump it here – some may find it interesting.

I charted 35 games focusing on possessions within the opposition’s half ... which was split into 9 segments ... and focussed on shots from these possessions. The segments are created horizontally across the 45m & 20m lines and vertically up from the large parallelogram. I had hoped to put in a graph to illustrate the segments but putting graphs in here is nightmarish - I hope you can at least get a sense of the segments!! Obviously a lot of this is subjective (from TV angles it can be hard to tell whether a shot from the 45m line is inside or outside the imaginery lines up from the large parallelogram) and the results will be weighted towards those teams which were on TV more (Cork, Dublin etc.) but you’ve gotta work with what you have.

Dead Ball

Surprisingly there was no real difference between taking frees from the hand (73%) or the ground (74%) within the 45m line though the further out you go the more unreliable the ground kicks become (that’s a by product of the increase in teams going for their 45m). Conversely the nearer you get the more reliable ground kicking appears to be (only 2 missed inside the 20m line)

From Hand

Section	Shots	Scores	Success Rate
1	3	1	33%
2	10	6	60%
3	5	2	40%
4	44	25	57%
5	54	44	81%
6	37	20	54%
7	28	20	71%
8	41	37	90%
9	18	17	94%
Total	240	172	72%
Inside 45m line	222	163	73%

From Ground

Section	Shots	Scores	Success Rate
1	20	10	50%
2	58	29	50%
3	30	10	33%
4	36	16	44%
5	39	37	95%
6	40	22	55%
7	8	8	100%
8	24	24	100%
9	14	12	86%
Total	269	168	62%
Inside 45m line	161	119	74%

Of the teams with more than one game charted Kerry & Tyrone’s dead ball striking was far and away ahead of the other ‘big’ teams. Like we all know here Kildare’s dead ball striking was a weak link and surprisingly Cork were below average

Team	Shots	Scores	Shots to Score Rate
DONEGAL	4	4	100%
LEITRIM	7	7	100%
TYRONE	23	20	87%
CAVAN	6	5	83%
KERRY	35	29	83%
TIPPERARY	8	6	75%
GALWAY	16	12	75%
LAOIS	15	11	73%
LOUTH	25	18	72%
ANTRIM	7	5	71%
DUBLIN	52	36	69%
MONAGHAN	24	16	67%
SLIGO	27	18	67%
MAYO	6	4	67%
AVERAGE	528	350	66%
WEXFORD	20	13	65%
CORK	57	37	65%
KILDARE	44	28	64%
LIMERICK	15	9	60%
WICKLOW	7	4	57%
DOWN	30	17	57%
MEATH	29	16	55%
ROSCOMMON	28	15	54%
FERMANAGH	10	5	50%
ARMAGH	14	7	50%
DERRY	9	4	44%
CARLOW	10	4	40%

Looking at players (those with >5 strikes at goal) Martin Penrose & Colm Cooper were top of the heap for the ‘big’ teams (hence why Tyrone & Kerry were so high as teams) though Donie Shine & Cian Ward’s reputation as dead ball specialists appears to be inflated. Johnny Doyle had more attempts than anyone else but his conversion rate was below average.

Player	Shots	Scores	Shots to Score Rate
P Joyce	8	8	100%
M Foley	7	7	100%
M Penrose	12	11	92%
C Cooper	19	17	89%
T Quinn	8	7	88%
C Judge	6	5	83%
C McManus	6	5	83%
M Poland	6	5	83%
MJ Tierney	6	5	83%
S Cavanagh	6	5	83%
M Breheny	9	7	78%
B Sheehan	15	11	73%
D Goulding	32	23	72%
B Grogan	7	5	71%
C Keaney	10	7	70%
C McGee	10	7	70%
D O'Connor	19	13	68%
B Brogan	25	17	68%
J Doyle	34	23	68%
D Kingston	6	4	67%
B White	17	11	65%
M Forde	11	7	64%
P Finlay	19	12	63%
G Collins	8	5	63%
S Cluxton	8	5	63%
D Shine	29	17	59%
C Ward	26	15	58%
M Clarke	19	10	53%
R Barry	6	3	50%
S Rea	8	3	38%
S McDonnell	11	4	36%

There are quite a few big names down the bottom of this chart; one arguement is that they are attempting harder kicks due to their overall proficiency and therefore will be penailsed more for missing harder kicks. I will come back to this once I've posted up the striking from play

Hats off to you for that work ,very impressive .Do you want to get involved in a club , id say a far less time consuming role could very well be found for you ?!.

Im very impressed with that contribution clonmullin. Really superb work.
Someone give this person a job in HQ quick!!!

I second that....

Fair play clonmullin!!

Top top work, does Geezer need a stats man?

anthony rainbow does the stats for geezer

Thanks for the kind words.

From Play

Using the same details and caveats as for dead balls below is how the shots from play fared. Though the volume of kicks is relatively small I was still surprised to see that shots from outside the 45m were better than those on the wings between the 20m & 45m.

Section	Shots	Scores	Success Rate
1	28	14	50%
2	96	44	46%
3	46	19	41%
4	395	148	37%
5	411	236	57%
6	353	146	41%
7	184	88	48%
8	367	240	65%
9	161	81	50%

The next piece was one of the main reasons I did this. I was watching Kildare players pop points over from all over the pitch yet the same lame, tardy, lazy tags were being applied to the team (anyone remember McStay’s “hot zone”??). Kildare’s accuracy from play was the best of the quarter finalists and well ahead of Cork & Dublin – still it’s easier to use clichés in GAA commentary (TV, radio & print) than actually do some proper analysis.

Now there are even more more moving pieces to shots from play than dead balls (weather conditions, playing at home, shooting under pressure, going for goals etc.) but the more examples you have the less chance that these will affect the trends ...

Team	Shots	Scores	Success Rate
WICKLOW	17	12	71%
TIPPERARY	12	8	67%
FERMANAGH	37	20	54%
KILDARE	111	58	52%
MONAGHAN	83	43	52%
LOUTH	58	30	52%
MEATH	103	52	50%
ANTRIM	18	9	50%
DOWN	86	42	49%
GALWAY	58	28	48%
ROSCOMMON	45	21	47%
KERRY	66	30	45%
SLIGO	86	38	44%
AVERAGE	1513	666	44%
LIMERICK	41	18	44%
ARMAGH	69	30	43%
CORK	145	58	40%
DERRY	15	6	40%
TYRONE	95	38	40%
DUBLIN	181	72	40%
CAVAN	25	9	36%
CARLOW	24	8	33%
DONEGAL	19	6	32%
WEXFORD	40	11	28%
LEITRIM	15	4	27%
WICKLOW	17	12	71%
LAOIS	41	10	24%
MAYO	23	5	22%

For everyone who had at least 15 shots charted below is the accuracy . Seriously what is Gilroy at continuing to play O’Gara? He is a luxury that Dublin cannot afford as the supporting cast to Brogan is poor – 3 of the bottom 4 in accuracy terms here are Dublin players. I was screaming at the players to let O'Gara shoot every time he touched the ball the last day - oh well. How good is the Gooch (or how bad were the other Kerry forwards last year - Gooch is that high yet the team was slightly above average)??? And man I'd love to see JD back in the forwards

Team	Shots	Scores	Success Rate
C Cooper	29	23	79%
M Penrose	19	14	74%
P Joyce	24	17	71%
P Finlay	24	17	71%
G Reilly	24	16	67%
G Collins	15	10	67%
D O'Connor	35	23	66%
B Brogan	72	45	63%
M Breheny	16	10	63%
D Goulding	53	33	62%
J Doyle	54	33	61%
B White	22	13	59%
J Kavanagh	17	10	59%
C McGee	17	10	59%
D Shine	40	23	58%
S O'Rourke	18	10	56%
B Sheehan	26	14	54%
C Ward	36	18	50%
M Clarke	27	13	48%
J Sheridan	23	11	48%
J Clark	17	8	47%
O Mulligan	15	7	47%
C McManus	15	7	47%
S McDonnell	26	12	46%
A Costello	20	9	45%
M Forde	16	7	44%
B Coulter	16	7	44%
S Cavanagh	23	10	43%
C Keaney	21	9	43%
A Brogan	30	10	33%
P Kerrigan	23	7	30%
E O'Gara	19	5	26%

I mentioned earlier that to objectively rank players the difficulty of the shot needs to be included in the calculation. I'll drop that in the next one ... sorry for doing it piecemeal but aligning tables in here is a pain in the ar*s and takes forever!! But Bernard Brogan definitley deserved his player of the year - despite his accuracy not being at the top when the difficulty is added he stands head and shoulders over everyone

While these aren't stats, this might be of interest - the leading scorers. Johnny is in fifth.


http://www.daraghoconchuir.ie/blog.php?id=1245

Johnny is just brilliant!! ....

A concerning thing there is the next Kildare player on the list is No 28 Leper on 1-8, (after all the games we have played this year and our best forward is at 28) and then young Flats at no 54 (0- but very interestingly Emmet Bolton at 58 on 1-5 ,our brilliant half back who missed a game is our 4th best scorer.
Boys call me negative or what ever you like but if we are going to do it this year, our forwards need to up their scores, simple as that, our midfield and backs are carriying it for them at the moment, look at the meath game, correct me if i'm wrong but I think it was 1-4 scored from our backs.

On a positive note, however, Tomas 'The Beautiful beast' (don't know where I read that but its a good one ) and Jimmers are looking good and stepping up to the mark, just need to get a few more scores.

Ben Brosnan still on top but has only four points in hand on Johnny who has AT LEAST one more game

http://www.daraghoconchuir.ie/blog.php?id=1259