Dublin V Laois 2014 Championship

For those new to the blog, or who haven’t been here for a while, please find a refresher on the definitions and how the numbers are compiled here

Overall

Team	Possessions	Shots	Shot Rate	Scores	Success Rate	Weighting
Dublin	51	42	82%	23	55%	+2.758
Laois	44	33	75%	16	48%	-0.027
Champ (’12 & ’13 avg)	35.8	27.6	77.2%	14.1	51.0%

Dublin may have had 57 & 54 possessions against Cork & Derry in the league but this performance is the only time that any team has breached 50 possessions in a Championship game. Whilst that sequence of numbers are scary in themselves what may be more troubling for pretenders to their All Ireland crown is the fact that whilst they have maintained a very high Shot Rate (82% here; 82% & 83% against Cork & Derry) they improved their Success Rate – it was 49% in their two aforementioned league games. Maintaining 55% accuracy from that volume of shots is excellent.

Despite the gaudy numbers this was not a smooth, even performance. Much like against Cork in this year’s league semi final this was a game of two very different halves from Dublin with the after burners only being applied in the second half

1st half

	Possessions	Shots	Shot Rate	Scores	Success Rate	Weighting
Dublin	26	22	85%	8	36%	-2.652
Laois	27	21	78%	10	48%	0.413

2nd half

	Possessions	Shots	Shot Rate	Scores	Success Rate	Weighting
Dublin	25	20	80%	15	75%	+5.410
Laois	17	12	71%	6	50%	-0.440

Part of that second half prowess comes from some fabulous shooting from Dublin’s substitutes. The combined stat line for those sprung from the bench was 12 shots with a 75% Success Rate and a weighting of +2.919.

Rock & Costello scored the last 6 points from 6 shots when it could be argued that Laois were “gone” but you still have to have the ability to put players in those positions and have the squad that can finish the moves off. Dublin quite obviously have both.

So what of Laois? They came out of the traps on fire. By the time they committed their first turnover they had taken 8 shots from 8 possessions. It was the 12th minute, when O’Loughlin tried to pass the ball across the square to an outstretched Munnelly before they had an attack that did not result in a shot.

Their attacking approach was well above average; 44 attacking possessions and 33 shots, even with a below average Success Rate would be enough to win most games. Against this Dublin team however you must either (a) curtail their volume of shots or (b) convert your own chances at a very high rate – mid 60%

Shots from Play

Team	Shots	Scores	Success Rate	Weighting
Dublin	34	17	50%	+1.704
Laois	27	12	44%	+0.442
Champ avgs (’12 & ’13)	20.3	9.2	45.4%

Of course what really helps against Dublin, alongside a very high Success Rate, are goals. Laois didn’t manage one shot at goal.

In a previous post it has been shown that Dublin go for goal more than any other team – they were at it again in this game. Dublin had 9 shots at goal which equates to one shot at goal for every 2.8 point attempts – the average in last year’s Championship was 1 shot at goal for every 6.7 attempts at a point.

With such a poor Success Rate on goal attempts (22%; 2 from 9) then Dublin’s attempts at points must have been stellar to maintain such a high overall weighting – and they were. They converted 60% of their point attempts (15 from 25) with a weighting of +3.370. As stated earlier those numbers are somewhat padded by how the game ended but even removing Costello’s three late points Dublin converted 55% – still well above the average.

A special note for Munnelly. Watching his performance live you knew you were watching something noteworthy. Not only did he convert five shots from six attempts but they were from quite varied positions on the pitch – two from Sector 4 on the right, one from the centre and two from inside the 20m line on the left. Oh and one of his frees was from outside the 45.

His weighting for his shooting from play is better than anything recorded in last year’s Championship. Better than Dunne’s performance for Cavan against Armagh, Kielt’s against Down or the Gooch’s against Tipperary. It will be an exceptional shooting performance that tops what we witnessed on Sunday.

Shots from deadballs

Player	Shots	Scores	Success Rate	Weighting
S Cluxton (Dublin)	4	2	50%	+0.00
D Rock (Dublin)	3	3	100%	+0.967
B Brogan (Dublin)	1	1	100%	+0.087
D Kingston (Laois)	3	2	67%	-0.600
R Munnelly (Laois)	2	2	100%	+0.678
D Strong (Laois)	1	0	0%	-0.547
team avgs (’12 & ’13 Champ)	7.3	4.9	66.7%

Nothing overly spectacular in those numbers. Kingston gets penalized heavily for missing the free from Sector 9 (it is the weakness of the sector approach – shots from wider out are treated the same as those nearer in. Overall the swings and roundabouts will even themselves out but in specific games it can look harsh) whilst the two he converted were relativity simple.

Cluxton converted 2 of his 4 45s which is bang on average. There was no pressure on Rock’s three frees towards the end of the game however he was still very effective considering how little time he had to get up to game speed. Having a deadball striker of the caliber to call on could be hugely vital in closer games should Brogan be injured or his radar not function.

Kickouts

Dublin’s kickouts	Won	%	Turned into a possession	%	Shot	%
Dublin	23	79%	16	70%	11	48%
Laois	6	21%	6	100%	4	67%
Laois’s kickouts	Won	%	Turned into a possession	%	Shot	%
Dublin	7	19%	4	57%	4	100%
Laois	29	81%	22	76%	17	59%

Ostensibly Laois won the kickout battle. They won 5 more kickouts than Dublin (gaining possession on 35 kickouts to Dublin’s 30) and also harvested 6 more shots than Dublin did from possessions directly attributable to kickouts. They performed as well on Dublin’s kickouts as Dublin did on theirs whilst performing better than Dublin did on their own kickouts. It is not often we have seen that.

This is all the more commendable when you consider that Laois only went short on 9 of their own kickouts whilst Dublin went short on 16. Stripping these out Laois won 61% (22 out of 36) of what may be deemed contestable kickouts – 17 out of 24 on their own kickouts and 5 out of 12 on Dublin’s (unfortunately the cameras missed where 4 of the kickouts landed).

Of the 16 that Dublin went short on they won 15 and got a shot from 8 of them (53% of the time) – which is on a par with the returns observed in last year’s Championship.

Turnovers

	Team “coughing up” possession	Shots from Turnovers	%
Dublin	25	11	44%
Laois	31	22	71%

 

	Misplaced Pass	Tackled	Shots not going dead	Mishandled possession	Fouled ball
Dublin	16	0	2	1	6
Laois	18	5	3	3	2

Again we see Dublin’s fantastic ability to convert turnover ball to shots. In the league final against Derry they converted 24 of 33 (73%) turnovers into a shot. Again against Laois they converted 71% (22 from 31) of turnovers into shots. No other team has breached 50%.

Of the 31 turnovers Dublin received the ball in their own third of the pitch 22 times turning 13 of these into a shot. Of course that means that when Laois gave away the ball outside Dublin’s 45 every one of them was turned into a shot.

Another remarkable stat is the fact that Laois never regained possession from Dublin through a tackle. Not once. All of Dublin’s turnovers, or as near as makes no difference, could be described as self inflicted with passes going stray or Dublin’s forwards, in the main, fouling (think of O’Gara being blown for charging)

Shot Charts
I’m not sure if the top teams held a conference after last year’s Championship but following Mayo’s unbalanced shooting chart against Roscommon Dublin have followed suit. They only produced one shot for a point from the left hand side – in 2Again there is no evidence of this being a “thing” for Dublin so we will chalk it down as a one off – but still that is two performances back to back from big guns with a combined total of 1 shot from play from the left hand side.

Dublin’s shooting

Laois’s shooting

x = missed, disc = score, yellow = deadball, black = 1st half from play, white = 2nd half from play

Players with >= 2 shots from play

	Shots	Scores	Success Rate	Weighting
R Munnelly (Laois)	6	5	83%	+2.590
P Flynn (Dublin)	5	3	60%	+0.667
D Strong (Dublin)	5	2	40%	-0.075
D Kingston (Laois)	5	1	20%	-1.215
C Costello (Dublin)	4	3	75%	+1.284
D Connolly (Dublin)	4	2	50%	+0.467
P Andrews (Dublin)	4	1	25%	-1.135
A Brogan (Dublin)	3	1	33%	-0.126
E O’Gara (Dublin)	3	1	33%	-0.332
D Conway (Laois)	3	1	33%	-0.427
K McManamon (Dublin)	2	2	100%	+1.142
MD MacCauley (Dublin)	2	1	50%	+0.185
J O’Loughlin (Laois)	2	1	50%	+0.003
C Begley (Laois)	2	0	0%	-0.718

Tags: 2014, championship, Dublin, Laois