Ballyboden St. Endas v Éire Óg 2019 Leinster Club Final

When reviewing games here we rarely reference the weather (except for last year’s Ulster club final) – mainly because the games covered are intercounty Championship played in the best of weather on (mainly) perfectly maintained pitches. This wasn’t the case here. There was a very strong wind down the pitch, the rain came and went throughout the game leading to a greasy ball and the ground was dead and heavy. All of which led to difficult handling conditions, placing numerous players under huge pressure, as well as changing the normal shooting zones.

A quick visual on how the conditions affected the game – below are the shots from play with the wind (white) and without (black).

Against the wind the furthest score was c25m from the goals. Only one shot was from further than 30m out. This in turn compresses the area that needs to be defended and can lead to more turnovers if the attacking team don’t stand off stringing a series of non-threatening passes together.

With all that said above are the numbers. There were only 31 shots in the game (the Munster final had 45, Ulster 37 and Connacht 36) with a total of 60 turnovers (Munster x43, Ulster x33 and Connacht x34) and 88 possessions (Munster x81, Ulster x69 and Connacht x68). The usual metrics of Shot Rate, Attack Rate and points per possession really don’t stack up.

That’s not to say the high turnover volume was purely down to the conditions. There were 24 turnovers higher up the pitch outside each teams’ respective 45 which is indicative of excellent tackling and physical aggression without cynicism. That lack of cynicism is further evidenced by the fact that there were just five shots at goal from frees throughout the whole game.

When Ballyboden had the ball

Ballyboden may not have taken many shots but they handled the conditions, shooting wise, better than Éire Óg did; they were 70% (0 – 07 from 10) on point attempts from play as against 43% (0 – 06 from 14) for Éire Óg. They also managed to eke out the only shot on goal.

Conal Keaney was evergreen scoring on all three attempts and also setting up another shot.

When Éire Óg had the ball

Éire Óg struggled to use the wind in the first half. They had a purple patch around the 10th minute when they scored 0 – 03 from three in sixty seconds. But outside that they didn’t have another shot in the first 20 minutes and then finished the half with nothing from four attempts.

The accuracy didn’t improve against the wind in the second half scoring another 0 – 03 from seven shots from play whilst another two opportunities went abegging with forced free kicks.
Séan Gannon was immense scoring 0 – 02 from 3 as well as providing the primary assists for another four shots.

Kickouts

Just a quick note on Éire Óg’s kickouts.

black = 1st half, white = 2nd half

They had just the four kickouts in the first half and, with the wind, went long(ish) on all of them winning possession on three. Against Portlaoise their mid to long kickouts broke 50:50 (won five, lost five). All good.

Against the wind they had seven kickouts but lost five; including two of the last three that led to Ballyboden points at the death. Could they have changed up those last few? Should they have? Not once did they go short. Ballyboden did so on three of their six against the wind. In the semi-final Éire Óg went short six times so it was in their locker. But having said that they did win a long one immediately after going a point behind but then kicked the ball away. Who is to say the outcome would be any different if they did go short? And there was a subtle change; their first four against the wind went mid to right and after losing three they went mid left with the last three. It just didn’t work.

Portlaoise v Éire Óg 2019 Leinster Club SF

Portlaoise really struggled offensively in the second half. They only managed seven shots, five from play, and whilst many will look to attribute this to (a) having a man sent off and (b) then chasing a goal this somewhat conceals how they were going. Up until Lillis’ red card the shot count in the second half was 8 – 4 in Éire Óg’s favour whilst they were 0 – 05 to 0 – 01 ahead on the scoreboard.

It is hard, from a purely numeric perspective, to know how much opprobrium to heap on an attack when there is a poor offensive display or, conversely, how much praise should be heaped on the defending team. But from Éire Óg’s perspective there are some things we can elicit. Like their discipline; both in terms of shape and tackling.

Up until the red card Portlaoise had 33 possessions. Of those 15 had at least a double digit volume of passes yet in these 15 possessions Éire Óg only gave away one shot from free, didn’t cough up a goal chance and only allowed 0 – 01 from nine point attempts. Portlaoise couldn’t break them down, got frustrated by Éire Óg’s shape and tenacity, and started taking poor options (0 – 02 from 12 “outside” below)

Éire Óg did what was required up front. Missed a penalty but converted their other two goal chances. Recovered from some shaky frees in the first half to score 0 – 04 from six. 41% (0 – 07 from 17) on point attempts.

Despite scoring 2 – 11, which is an excellent score at this time of year, this was achieved through volume rather than accuracy. Their attacking play complemented their excellent defensive play rather than trumping it.

Therein Darragh O’Brien was quietly excellent. He may not have shown up on the scoreboard (0 – 01 compared to Chris Blake’s 1 – 04 for example), but was exemplary in the No.11 position with a very impressive eight primary assists.

Kickouts

This was in interesting battle throughout the game. Above is Portlaoise’s kickout chart. They were able to get them away into the left full/half back pocket relatively easily. One went out over the sideline but nothing much came of it. This is Brody’s natural pocket (when he opened his body and went to his right Blake caught it short of the 45 and scored a point) and was more or less given to Portlaoise. But they were then not able to use it.

Portlaoise got their hands on 14 short kickouts. All bar one were roll outs into the D or into that pocket. Portlaoise were only able to progress four to a shot. The possession on five didn’t make the Éire Óg 45 whilst another four saw just one player control the ball inside that 45. Éire Óg just suffocated them as they progressed up the pitch.

On the flip side Éire Óg really struggled on their kickout in the first half.

An over simplification for sure but they had two kickouts in that half; long mid-right into a contest on the 65 and onto the 45 by the sideline to the keeper’s left. 7 of their 10 first half kickouts went into these two areas with Portlaoise getting their hands on five.

Truth be told Portlaoise didn’t produce enough to put the Éire Óg keeper under pressure in the second half but when he was called upon (even before the Lillis red card reduced Portlaoise’s options) he changed it up avoiding the two first half pockets and dropping the ball into an area between the 45 & 65 to his left. They won 3 of 4 here and also picked up two short ones. Portlaoise were never able to put them under the sort of intense pressure that produced in the first half where they won four out of five Éire Óg kickouts racking up 1 – 02