Fermanagh v Antrim 2016 Ulster

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

Team	Possessions	Attacks	Shots	Scores	Exp Pts
Fermanagh	48	34	28	1 – 12	14.17
Antrim	41	25	23	0 – 09	13.18

Fermanagh will have areas to work on in the run up to their Ulster QF with Donegal but here, against Antrim over 70 minutes, they were by far the stronger in all the key metrics – more possessions, more attacks and more shots.

One of the areas of concern will undoubtedly be their shooting. Yes they outperformed their Expt Pts (how many points the average team would return from the shots attempted) but this was greatly aided by the conversion of their only goal chance and two magnificent sideline points. When going for a point from play they were very poor scoring on just 33% of attempts (0 – 05 from 15 shots). Outside Tomás Corrigan & Séan Quigley they were a paltry 18% (2 from 11 with a combined Expt Pts of -3.02)

Another area will be their conversion of possessions to attacks which, at 71%, was quite poor. Against Dublin last year for instance they produced, considering the opposition, a much more impressive 73%. The low attack rate may be easier to rectify than the shooting however as it was directly linked to their extremely poor opening 30 minutes in the second half. During that period Fermanagh managed only seven attacks (from 15 possessions – an attack rate of just 47%) and four shots opening up the possibility of an unlikely Antrim comeback. In the first half their attack rate was 81% from 26 possessions. Pete McGrath and his backroom team will hope the first half, when the team was at the pitch of the game, is a truer reflection of Fermanagh’s attack.

Antrim

What of Antrim? They had an awful opening 20 minutes, as the above chart highlights, from which they were never able to recover. Three of their first four possessions saw quick, indiscriminate long balls into the forward line that did not stick. This was then followed by six scatter gun shots that failed to find the target. Only Tomás McCann’s missed free kick in the 8th minute came from anything resembling a central position. Coming out of that opening period they were already six points down and the game was effectively over as a contest.

To their credit Antrim did perform much better in the second half, scoring 0 – 07 from 12 shots (two more shots than Fermanagh and a respectable 58% Conversion Rate) but whether this was a truer reflection of Antrim, or a direct correlation to the aforementioned anaemic display of Fermanagh, only the rest of the year’s Championship will confirm.

Kickouts

Again looking forward to the Donegal game one area of note will be the kickouts. At a very high level Fermanagh will be satisfied with their overall returns. They won 78% (14 of 18) of their own kickouts and 39% (9 of 23) of Antrim’s. Indeed their overall possession advantage of seven is nearly all contained within their kickout success. But therein lies a concern. To attain such a healthy win percentage Fermanagh went short on eight of their kickouts but did not manage to score anything from those possessions. Indeed they only manufactured four shots. When the kickout went past the 45 the result was a less convincing 6 – 4 to Fermanagh. Antrim only went short twice; of all their kickouts that travelled past the 45 the result was 13 – 8 in Antrim’s favour.

Donegal will not go as long as Antrim did. Over the last two Championships Donegal have gone short on 29% of their kickouts. This will immediately wipe out the possession advantage Fermanagh enjoyed in this game and place more pressure on securing their own kickout. They did a very good job of that here however they will have to do more, in terms of shots and scores from these possessions, than was the case here.

Tomás Corrigan

Finally we cannot pass without mentioning Tomás Corrigan’s display. He accounted for 58% of Fermanagh’s shots but his day will probably be best remembered for the two acute sideline points mid-way through the first half. Looking at historical results the chances of converting two back to back sidelines is just under 8% but getting and converting two within 90 seconds? That is slim enough to already warrant entry into “moment of the Championship”.

And yet his contribution does not end there; he was 3 from 3 from play converting two with his left and one with the right. Outside the three sideline attempts – as well as the two converted in the first half he attempted one with the last kick of the game – he was 67% on frees scoring 0 – 04 from six attempts which is more or less in line with the Expt Pts (3.88 for the six frees combines). All round an excellent, accurate and classy display.

Appendix

Shot Charts

Fermanagh’s shooting

Antrim’s shooting

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

 

Players with >= 3 shots from play

	Shots	Scores	Success Rate	Exp Pts
T Corrigan (Fermanagh)	3	0 – 03	100%	1.55
T McCann (Antrim)	3	0 – 02	67%	1.93
A Breen (Fermanagh)	3	0 – 01	33%	1.21
B Mulrone (Fermanagh)	3	0 – 00	0%	1.35

Expected Wins; how teams fared versus their odds

Once September rolls around only one or two teams will deem their year as being successful. In 2015 Dublin had a year of years winning the league, Leinster and the All Ireland (do we throw in the O’Byrne cup?). Monaghan winning Ulster made for a successful season whilst there is an honourable mention for Fermanagh with promotion to Division2 and the quarter final appearance. But what about the rest?

If the league is a means to an end for the majority, and the All Ireland and Provincial championships are regularly shared by the same teams, how do we measure the remainder’s performance? Or indeed how do we judge a team like Tyrone that got relegated, fell short in Ulster but rallied to get to the All Ireland semi-final? One way is to compare a team’s results against how bookmaker’s thought they should fare.

Bookmakers give odds on all games. The main markets are match odds and handicap. Any bookmaker worth their salt will tell you that though all odds can be converted into a percentage chance of winning this is not their primary aim when setting the line. They are not trying to exactly predict the likelihood of an outcome but rather set a line that will encourage multi way action on the game. This then enables them to have relatively evenly split betting on all outcomes and they can take the built in margin.

Still these lines are a very good proxy for how a team is expected to perform and the cumulative odds can thus be used to extract just how many games a team won above, or below, what was expected. Thus we create an Expected Wins (Exp Wins) metric.

Expected Wins

All odds for a game were converted to an Exp Win (see methodology in Note2 below) and then teams ranked according to how many wins they obtained in the League & Championship above this mark

It comes as no surprise that seven of the top ten teams in pure win percentage appear in the top ten based on Exp Wins. Fermanagh and Monaghan are up there given their aforementioned successful seasons. Longford also had a good year winning 9 of their 13 games. In fact on pure winning percentage they finished second in the country behind Dublin’s 75%.

But what of the remainder? The biggest surprise by far was Limerick. They only won three games in total, ranking them in the bottom third on pure wins alone, but were 7th when compared to their Exp Wins. How so?

They were the outsider in all seven of their league games but won three. From those seven games the bookmakers expected them to win 1.87. They outperformed their expected wins by more than a full game. In the Championship they lost by two points away to Clare in a game that had Clare favoured by two and then walked into Tyrone in the first round of the back door. The positive Exp Win total they accumulated in the league was not too badly dented by these two losses – especially the Tyrone one where they were huge outsiders.

Sligo were a bit of a surprise given that they only won four games but again they were quite large underdogs when beating Roscommon in the Championship and complete outsiders in the next two games against Tyrone & Mayo. Given the very low combined Exp Wins from those three games (0.39) that one victory against Roscommon puts them in positive territory for the Championship alone.

Against the Spread

Another way of tracking a team’s performance is to see if they covered the bookmaker’s handicap; or what their ATS (against the spread) was in American parlance. We would expect some cross over with the best performers in the Expected Win list but crucially you don’t have to win a game to beat this performance metric – only play above an expected standard

Again six of the teams that appeared in the Exp Wins top ten re-appear. A number of the teams, such as Limerick, Sligo, Fermanagh & Monaghan we have touched upon previously but there are a few surprises. Mayo, despite being a very high profile team, would have been a profitable one to follow on the handicap. Cork, for all the negativity following the losses to Kerry & Kildare, were also profitable but it is London & Leitrim that jump out. Between them they won four games all season but it could be argued they had a pretty good year; their performance exceeded expectations in 12 of their combined 18 games.

London only won one of their nine games all year but managed to cover the handicap on six occasions. Narrow that further and they covered the handicap in five of their seven league games including all three that they played away. You would never state that London had a good season but from a performance perspective we should probably cut them some slack. They performed well above expectation.

Worst Performances

Originally the above table was going to be the bottom five but I expanded it to catch two of the bigger fish.

Some of the lower lights – Carlow, Wicklow & Waterford – being down here is not really a surprise given just how few games they won. However it does indicate that perhaps the bookmakers were generally over rating them despite their poor form.

Laois were particularly poor but looking purely at their Championship form they beat Carlow when their Exp Win was 0.86 so get very little credit for that and then had a further three games failing to win any of them when the combined Exp Win was 1.75.

Given they were relegated from Division 1 with just the one win from seven it is perhaps no surprise to see Tyrone down here.

Kerry won seven games throughout the year but were expected to win eight. Creating a league/Championship split Kerry had an Expected win of -0.81 in the league and -0.19 in the Championship. Their Championship was slightly less underwhelming than their league (I kid – sort of!)

Three of those that appeared in the worst Exp Win table re-appear when we look at the worst performances against the handicap. Wicklow and Waterford not only failed to win enough games but also played poorly in their losses covering a combined four handicaps over 18 games. Given that they won seven games but were only an outsider once during the year – and that a slight outsider in the final against Dublin – it is no surprise that Kerry are again represented.

They had, all told, a good year but were consistently over valued by the bookmakers. Or conversely the bookmakers kept their odds short as the public’s perception of Kerry was that they were performing better than they actually were.

APPENDIX

Note 1; there can be quite a difference in bookmaker’s odds. The odds used for this piece were taken primarily from Paddy Power rather than taking the best prices available across all bookmakers. The main reason for this was laziness on my part as it meant just one source rather than hopping around sites.

When you take the price can also be important. Lines do move. However they were generally taken on Saturday or Sunday morning when any early moves had been accounted for.

Note2; generally speaking the margin on GAA match odds is 109% with lesser games getting up to 112%. A typical line in a close game would be 10/11 (home team), 15/2 (draw) & 6/5 (away team) which equals a book of 109.6%. To make this, and all games, come in at 100% – and remove the bookmaker’s margin – I extracted 3% from each outcome. There is a valid argument that this should be more nuanced (take less off the draw perhaps) but for now it’s fine.

The home team has a 52.4% chance of winning on the odds. We know this is inflated to account for the bookmaker’s margin. Take 3% away from each of the three outcomes to account for this and the home team now has a 49.4% chance of winning. So using the above quoted odds we get an Exp win of 0.49 for the home team (priced at 10/11) and 0.42 for the away team (priced at 6/5).

Do this for all games for a particular team and you have created an Expected Wins metric.

Dublin V Fermanagh 2015 All Ireland QF

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 %	Scores	Success %	Weighting
Dublin	59	48	81%	38	79%	25	66%	+7.647
Fermanagh	55	40	73%	33	83%	16	48%	+0.708
Avg		37.0		28.7	77.7%	14.7	51.2%

Note that the 1st Fermanagh goal is not included in the above as it did not come from a shot

After their blip against Westmeath Dublin’s shooting was back on form. The last six games, including the league semi-final and final, have returned Conversion Rates of 61%, 67%, 74%, 64%, 39% and 66%. The average is 51%.

Here the foundation was laid in the first half when they converted a whopping 82% of shots with a weighting of +6.55. All this was from play with only one shot at goal. They did something very similar to Kildare where they scored 3-10 off 19 shots (+4.28) in the first half. Such accurate bombardments are incredibly tough to resist.

Fermanagh have been inundated with praise for their efforts and rightly so. Now whilst the game was not a contest, and we must factor in the fact that Dublin’s efforts waned in the second half, they more or less matched Dublin in terms of possessions and shots. Their shooting did not match Dublin but it was not because they were poor – they were average. It was just that Dublin were, once again, stellar.

Shots from Play

Team	Shots	Scores	Success %	Weighting
Dublin	35	22	63%	+6.551
Fermanagh	26	11	42%	-0.078
Avgs	21.4	9.7	45.3%

Where to start. Bernard Brogan grabbed 1-06 from 9 shots getting 0 – 02 with his two left footed attempts and netting his only goal bound effort. He has been uber efficient in front of goal scoring 5-00 from the six goal attempts he’s had this year and getting 0-16 from his 24 point attempts. That’s a combined Conversion Rate of 70% with a weighting of +6.93. We are talking James O’Donoghue from last year.

Dean Rock was next on the list grabbing 0-04 from 5 attempts with his only miss being a goal attempt blocked early in the second half. He scored one beauty at the top of D where he gathered a high ball, dropped and swivelled. He has still to prove himself against tougher opposition but accuracy of his level does him no harm. Plus you have to imagine his deadball proficiency will see him in the starting 15 for the semi-final.

Shots from deadballs

Player	Shots	Scores	Success %	Weighting
D Rock (Dublin)	3	3	100%	+1.096
S Quigley (Fermanagh)	5	4	80%	+1.196
T Corrigan (Fermanagh)	2	1	50%	-0.41
team avgs	7.2	4.9	68.7%

Rock continues on his merry way. Since the league semi-final against Monaghan he is converting at a hardly believable 93%; 28 from 30 including 4 from 4 on 45s.

No one, in the now 4 years we have data for, comes near this level of accuracy. B Brogan had historically struggled on frees and whilst Rock’s accuracy has undoubtedly added an extra dimension to the Dublin game I do wonder if Brogan’s resurgence this year has anything to do with him not having to take frees. He looks “freer” this year than he has for the last few. Another reason to start Rock?

Quigley had a very good day on frees nailing two outside the 45 in the second half; his only miss was in the 69th minute from the right – the “wrong” side for a right footed kicker.

Kickouts

Dublin’s kickouts	Won	%	Turned into an attack	%	Shot	%
Dublin	22	81%	19	86%	16	73%
Fermanagh	5	19%	5	100%	4	80%
Fermanagh’s kickouts	Won	%	Turned into an attack	%	Shot	%
Dublin	9	26%	8	89%	6	67%
Fermanagh	26	74%	17	65%	13	50%

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day was how well Fermanagh fared on kickouts. We all know Dublin’s providence in this area but the last day Fermanagh, on kickouts that travelled past the 45, lost the battle 8 – 6.

Here nine of their kickouts went short yielding 0 – 03 whilst they won 65% (17 of 26) of those that travelled past the 45. Winning possession on 74% of your own kickouts is very acceptable – Westmeath managed 61% whilst Longford were at 44%.

Again on Dublin contestable kickouts Fermanagh were fine winning 5 of the 10. The problem was that Dublin went short on 63% of their kickouts and scored an incredible 1-10 from those 17 kickouts.

To put that in some perspective they score 0.76 points from the 17 possessions that emanated from short kickouts; they scored 0.38 points from all other possessions.

Turnovers

Team giving up the ball	Pass	In the Tackle	Shot	Other
Dublin	12	7	3	2
Fermanagh	16	5	5	1

A tidier game from Dublin after the 31 turnovers conceded against Westmeath. The last day the main culprit was MacAuley – here it was, surprisingly, Paul Flynn. I have him tagged for 5 turnovers with 3 of those passes going astray. As ever highlighting one player can be misleading, as we are only listing the negative plays, still it was by no means his finest day at the office.

Shot Charts

Dublin’s shooting

Fermanagh’s shooting

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

Players with >= 3 shots from play

I wasn’t sure where to put this but we have to acknowledge Quigley’s single handed attempts to drag Fermanagh into the game. And I mean single handed – Fermanagh’s shot sequence from the 35th min was

Quigley, Mulrone, Quigley, Quigley, Quigley, Quigley, Quigley, Kelly, Quigley, Quigley, Quigley

In fairness the returns show that he was more than capable of taking those shots – but it is still some sequence!

	Shots	Scores	Success %	Weighting
B Brogan (Dublin)	9	7	78%	+2.482
S Quigley (Fermanagh)	7	4	57%	+1.079
B Mulrone (Fermanagh)	6	3	50%	+0.441
D Rock (Dublin)	5	4	80%	+1.949
P Andrews (Dublin)	5	3	60%	+1.166
C Kilkenny (Dublin)	4	3	75%	+1.197
D Connolly (Dublin)	3	2	67%	+0.968
T Corrigan (Fermanagh)	3	2	67%	+0.828
P Flynn (Dublin)	3	2	67%	+0.578

Fermanagh V Westmeath 2015 Qualifier

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 %	Scores	Success %	Weighting
Fermanagh	48	37	77%	31	84%	14	45%	-1.508
Westmeath	47	36	77%	25	69%	7	28%	-6.793
Avg		37.0		28.7	77.7%	14.7	51.2%

An even enough game in terms of how much ball the teams had (possessions) and where they had it (attacks). The differential was in the attacking play and the accuracy of the shooting.

Once inside the 45 Fermanagh were able to get shots off (though the Shot Rate was boosted by their willingness to shoot from the wings – more of that anon) however Westmeath seemed to run out of ideas once met by Fermanagh’s defensive screen. 25 shots from 36 attacks is a low enough return.

On top of that, for the second game in a row, Westmeath’s accuracy was very poor. It was so poor that Fermanagh could have a below average outing and still win easily.

Shots from Play

Team	Shots	Scores	Success %	Weighting
Fermanagh	21	8	38%	-0.845
Westmeath	17	4	24%	-4.026
Avgs	21.4	9.7	45.3%

There was only one goal attempt in the game which Corrigan finished with aplomb.

There was one occasion in the first half however when Fermanagh, after overturning the ball high up the pitch, had a running overlap which they could have converted with an attacking hand pass. Instead the pass went square and Westmeath got back. Against Dublin they will need to be more aggressive.

When going for a point Fermanagh were poor converting 35% (7 from 20) with a weighting of -1.507. The main reason for this was where Fermanagh took their shots from. Only 35% were central – of the remainder Fermanagh converted 31% on 13 attempts. If you are going to shoot from wide you better have your shooting boots on – if they’re not on you better get more central.

Whilst not wishing to be overly critical of Westmeath that is now two games where they have trailed for long periods of the second half and in which they have not manufactured one shot on goal. As well as that their shooting from play was decidedly poor converting just 25% (8 from 32) of their point attempts for a combined weighting of -6.81. Combine both elements (poor shooting and no goal attempts) and you get some dismal returns from your possession.

Shots from deadballs

Player	Shots	Scores	Success %	Weighting
T Corrigan (Fermanagh)	6	5	83%	+0.853
S Quigley (Fermanagh)	4	1	25%	-1.516
J Connellan (Westmeath)	3	2	67%	-0.295
R Connellan (Westmeath)	3	1	33%	-1.062
P Sharry (Westmeath)	1	0	0%	-0.621
G Egan (Westmeath)	1	0	0%	-0.789

Only for Corrigan! In the first half there were 12 shots at goal from a deadball – with only four converted (33% versus an average of ~70%). The sequence is below. As the half was bookended with three points there were 8 misses from 9 attempts at one stage.

Point, Point, Wide, Wide, Wide, Wide, Point, Wide, Short, Wide, Wide, Point

Corrigan converted all five of his frees with the only miss being a rather rash attempt from a sideline ball.

Heslin being out proved a big hurdle for Westmeath to overcome and this was no more evident than when they turned down three opportunities for a shot at goal from a free inside Fermanagh’s 45. You have to imagine Heslin would have gotten two of them thus boosting Westmeath and placing great pressure on Fermanagh – in that first half particularly.

Kickouts

Fermanagh’s kickouts	Won	%	Turned into an attack	%	Shot	%
Fermanagh	10	56%	7	70%	5	50%
Westmeath	8	44%	8	100%	6	75%
Westmeath’s kickouts	Won	%	Turned into an attack	%	Shot	%
Fermanagh	10	34%	9	90%	7	70%
Westmeath	19	66%	15	79%	11	58%

We missed one of Fermanagh’s kickouts. Of the remaining 17 three went short meaning that of the 14 “contestable” kickouts Westmeath won the battle 8 – 6. This will have to be an area of concern going in to the next day..

Turnovers

Team giving up the ball	Pass	In the Tackle	Shot	Other
Fermanagh	11	4	1	3
Westmeath	10	8	6	1

Nothing too earth shattering here though Fermanagh did give up three turnovers inside their own 65 which Westmeath were unable to convert to a score. They will have to mind the ball better against Dublin

Players with >= 3 shots from play

	Shots	Scores	Success %	Weighting
T Corrigan (Fermanagh)	5	3	60%	+0.920
S Quigley (Fermanagh)	4	1	25%	-0.729
S Dempsey (Westmeath)	4	1	25%	-0.979
D McCusker (Fermanagh)	3	2	67%	+0.807
J Connellan (Westmeath)	3	2	67%	+0.733

Laois V Fermanagh 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
Laois	49	37	76%	20	54%	+2.8431
Fermanagh	38	29	76%	17	59%	+2.163
Champ (’12 & ’13 avg)	35.8	27.6	77.2%	14.1	51.0%

A generally open game with Fermanagh’s accuracy, rather than any squandering on Laois’s part, leading to a close game.

The 49 possessions here indicate, alongside the 44 gained against Dublin, that this Laois team has a lot of attacking intent and will have enough ball to give any team a game.

Shots from Play

Team	Shots	Scores	Success Rate	Weighting
Laois	30	15	50%	+2.009
Fermanagh	24	12	50%	+0.298
Champ avgs (’12 & ’13)	20.3	9.2	45.4%

Two things jump out. The first being the discrepancy in weightings considering that both teams converted 50%. Fermanagh’s weighting is hugely affected by two efforts for fisted points from Owens & Quigley from in front of the posts. There are not enough of these attempts in the database to give them a proper weighting so they are treated as normal attempts at a point from in front of goals – teams (& players) are pretty negatively affected when they miss these attempts.

The second is how good Laois’s returns were. Much of the commentary in the first half was around how Laois were squandering their supremacy. And they did – they only converted 2 of their first 10 shots. This impression of looseness was maintained throughout the game however after that initial period Laois were superb converting 65% (13 out of 20) of their shots including a remarkable closing sequence of 7 from 8.

There were some remarkable individual displays from Quigley (5 from 9 with a weighting of +1.115) and Kingston (5 from 8 with a weighting of +1.605). Indeed for one stretch of play, either side of half time, Quigley accounted for 10 of Fermanagh’s 12 shots.

Munnelly could not maintain his shooting accuracy from the Dublin game. It was noticeable however that after the Fermanagh goal in the first half it was Munnelly that took the next two shots and set up the third for Meredith’s point right before the half time whistle.

Shots from deadballs

Player	Shots	Scores	Success Rate	Weighting
D Strong (Laois)	4	2	50%	-0.322
R Munnelly (Laois)	2	2	100%	+0.906
D Kingston (Laois)	1	1	100%	+0.160
S Quigley (Fermanagh)	5	5	100%	+1.865
team avgs (’12 & ’13 Champ)	7.3	4.9	66.7%

Excellent deadball striking all told with the only two misses coming from two long range Darren Strong frees.

Quigley’s returns were very good with only one of the four frees being central.

Kickouts

Laois’s kickouts	Won	%	Turned into a possession	%	Shot	%
Laois	19	76%	15	79%	11	58%
Fermanagh	6	24%	6	100%	6	100%
Fermanagh’s kickouts	Won	%	Turned into a possession	%	Shot	%
Laois	10	32%	9	90%	7	70%
Fermanagh	21	68%	14	67%	10	48%

Laois went short (were allowed go short by Fermanagh) on 54% of their kickouts which resulted in 9 shots and a return of 0-03. Fermanagh did not gain a possession from any of these kickouts.

When Laois went past the 45 with their kickout it became a contest. Fermanagh won 5 of the 11 and got a shot from all 5. Laois only managed to get two shots from the six that they won.

Fermanagh were better at defending the short kickout than Antrim were against Donegal (or conversely Laois were poor at turning the short kickout into a shot) but in both games they (Fermanagh & Antrim) were better served by forcing the opposition to kick long

Turnovers

Team “coughing up” possession	# turnovers	Shots from Turnovers	%
Laois	27	11	41%
Fermanagh	28	18	64%

 

	Misplaced Pass	Tackled	Shots not going dead	Mishandled possession	Fouled ball
Laois	8	9	5	3	2
Fermanagh	16	5	3	2	2

Laois will be concerned by how often they got turned over in the tackle. The good news was that none of those particular turnovers occurred in their own third of the pitch. The bad news is that the 9 turnovers were spread over 7 different players so it appears to be a team wide “fault” in that they get dispossessed easier than most county teams (they also lost possession against Dublin 5 times through a tackle)

Shot Charts

Laois’s shooting

Fermanagh’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
S Quigley (Fermanagh)	9	5	56%	+1.115
D Kingston (Laois)	8	5	63%	+1.605
R Munnelly (Laois)	6	2	33%	-0.343
C Begley (Laois)	3	1	33%	-0.135
D Strong (Laois)	3	1	33%	-0.357
T McElroy (Fermanagh)	3	0	0%	-1.283
C Meredith (Laois)	2	2	100%	+1.003
E Maguire (Fermanagh)	2	2	100%	+0.793
R Jones (Fermanagh)	2	1	50%	+0.281
B Sheehan (Laois)	2	1	50%	+0.234
P McCusker (Fermanagh)	2	1	50%	+0.149
D Conway (Laois)	2	1	50%	-0.125
B Owens (Fermanagh)	2	1	50%	-0.417

Fermanagh Vs Down

Team	Possessions	Shots	Shot Rate	Scores	Success Rate	Return Vs Expected
Down	33	28	85%	12	43%	-2.18
Fermanagh	33	22	67%	9	41%	-2.44
avg	41.8	28.3	67.7%	14.1	49.8%	0.00

That’s just a nasty set of numbers all around. Watching the game it never felt that Fermanagh were in it yet they had the ball inside the opposition’s 45m as many times as Down did. They also had the same (poor) shooting accuracy as Down – they just didn’t pull the trigger enough.

From play

Team	Shots	Scores	Success Rate	Vs Expected
Down	24	11	46%	-0.11
Fermanagh	16	5	31%	-2.38
avg	21.1	9.3	44.0%	0.00

From deadballs

Team	Shots	Scores	Success Rate	Vs Expected
A Carr (Down)	3	1	33%	-1.56
K Duffin (Down)	1	0	0%	-0.51
D Kille (Fer)	3	2	67%	+0.11
S Quigley (Fer)	2	2	100%	+0.23
B Mulrane (Fer)	1	0	0%	-0.40
game avgs	7.3	4.8	66.5%	0.00

Previously I had noted that Antrim had a very deliberate ploy of playing defensively whilst hitting shots from the 45m line as a way of compensating for the lack of bodies up front. Fermanagh were every bit as defensive (yes they were down to 14 men but the sense from watching the game was that nothing really changed re their alignment with the red card), and their shooting was every bit as poor, but I don’t think the lack of return here can be placed on any obvious system calling for Fermanagh to take on difficult shots. They just shot very poorly from play.

I’m sure Down were just delighted to get over a game seen by many beforehand as a potential banana skin. There were, however, worrying signs in their shooting – especially from deadballs. They *did* have a wide range of shooters but no one really stepped forward to take a hold of the shooting responsibilities. Some easy frees were missed. Against a Division 4 team this was a mediocre outing.

Just a quick point on the discipline shown by both teams. Generally you will have 14 shots at goals from deadballs. Only 10 in a game shows quite a bit of discipline in the tackle.

Players with >= 3 shots from play

	Shots	Scores	Success Rate	Vs Expected
D O’Hare (Down)	3	2	67%	+0.52
D Kille (Fer)	3	1	33%	-0.17
D O’Hagan (Down)	3	1	33%	-0.47
C Laverty (Down)	3	1	33%	-0.59