Austin Stacks V Slaughtneil 2015 Club 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	Attacks	Attack %	Shots	Shot Rate	Scores	Success Rate	Weighting
Austin Stacks	38	21	55%	16	76%	12	75%	+2.323
Slaughtneil	42	31	74%	23	74%	15	65%	+3.421
Avg (70 mins)		37.0		28.7	77.7%	14.7	51.2%

Although the scoreboard may have indicated otherwise Slaughtneil dominated this game. If you knew nothing else about the game and were told that Slaughtneil had ten more attacks, and seven more shots, you would deem it unlikely that Austin Stacks would have a free in the dying minutes to draw the game.

The penalties of course had a huge bearing on how the scoreboard was somehow out of synch with the game. However were we to remove these moves, and Slaughtneil’s goal attempts, then running the shots taken through 20,000 simulations Slaughtneil win this game 87% of the time. Indeed as shown below they win it by four or more point over 50% of the time.

Now you cannot just remove incidents from a game but as a theoretical exercise it just goes to show the dominance that Slaughtneil had.

1st Half

Team	Possessions	Attacks	Attack %	Shots	Shot Rate	Scores	Success Rate	Weighting
Austin Stacks	17	10	59%	8	80%	7	88%	+2.373
Slaughtneil	18	15	83%	11	73%	9	82%	+3.145

2nd Half

Team	Possessions	Attacks	Attack %	Shots	Shot Rate	Scores	Success Rate	Weighting
Austin Stacks	21	11	52%	8	73%	5	63%	-0.05
Slaughtneil	24	16	67%	12	75%	5	50%	+0.276

An interesting quirk, much like the Corofin-St. Vincents game, was just how accurate both teams were with their shooting in the first half compared to the second. I’m sure there are reasons – fatigue, adrenaline wearing off, tension (I’m no sports scientist!) but it is very noticeable and not something I have ever noticed at county level before. No explanation really – and a very small sample size – but interesting nonetheless.

Shots from Play

Team	Shots	Scores	Success Rate	Weighting
Austin Stacks	8	7	88%	+3.612
Slaughtneil	18	11	61%	+3.441
Avgs (70 mins)	21.4	9.7	45.3%

This is where Slaughtneil’s dominance really shines through. Yes Austin Stacks were truly exceptional when they took their shots (six players scored on their only attempt whilst O’Callaghan scored with one and hit the post with the other) but they just did not engineer enough shooting opportunities. Indeed the last attempt for a score from play they had was in the 41st minute.

Whilst Slaughtneil’s Success Rate is below that of Austin Stacks’ the similar weighting shows that they maintained excellent accuracy over the wider range of shots they did attempt.
Jordan and McKaigue scored good points with their only attempt but it was Chris Bradley who produced the best display converting three of his four shots for a weighting of +1.345

Shots from deadballs

Player	Shots	Scores	Success Rate	Weighting
Paul Bradley (Slaughtneil)	5	4	80%	-0.02
S Carroll (Austin Stacks)	4	3	75%	-0.411
D Mannix (Austin Stacks)	2	1	50%	-0.242
P McCarthy (Austin Stacks)	2	1	50%	-0.636
team avgs (70 mins)	7.2	4.9	68.7%

In general 69% of deadballs are converted so it might seem odd that all four players returned negative weighting when there was a cumulative 69% Success Rate in this game. This leads to the heart of what the weighting is trying to achieve. Yes 1-08 was garnered from the 13 attempts but in reality more should have been scored given the relative ease of the attempts.

Only one of the penalties was converted when the average is 88%; six of the converted frees were in front of the posts from sectors 5 & 8 (see here for a breakdown of the sectors) whilst another was converted from inside the 20m line. All in the must/should convert range. That means that of the remainder only one of four was converted from what might be deemed moderately difficult positions.

Those that were converted were not of sufficient difficulty to make up for those that were missed – hence the negative weightings.

Kickouts

<stroAustin Stacks' kickouts	Won	%	Turned into a possession	%	Shot	%
Austin Stack	12	52%	4	33%	4	33%
Slaughtneil	11	48%	9	82%	6	55%
Slaughtneil’s	Won	%	Turned into a possession	%	Shot	%
Austin Stacks	6	46%	5	83%	4	67%
Slaughtneil	7	54%	6	86%	3	43%

Given that kickouts made up 45% of all possessions you would expect that the outcomes evidenced in the overall game would flow through to here. And they do – to an extent.

The level of possessions won are even and there is no great difference depending on who took the kickout. Neither team dominated. Slaughtneil, much like overall, were very good at getting the kickouts won into the opposition’s 45 however despite having six more attacks from possessions they only managed one more shot. Austin Stacks were more clinical with the kickout possession won – they just didn’t get enough of it into Slaughtneil’s 45.

Shot Charts

Austin Stacks’ shooting

Slaughtneil’s shooting

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

Players with >= 3 shots from play

	Shots	Scores	Success Rate	Weighting
C Bradley (Slaughtneil)	4	3	75%	+1.345
B McGuigan (Slaughtneil)	3	2	67%	+0.812
G Bradley (Slaughtneil)	3	2	67%	+0.667

Tags: Austin Stacks, Club, Slaughtneil