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

Portlaoise v Kilmacud Crokes Leinster Club SF 2018

As ever goals win games … or not. Portlaoise had two more shots than Kilmacud and also took shots that were expected, all other things being equal, to return a scoreline ~3pts more than Kilmacud. But Kilmacud ended up with 18 scores off a 64% Conversion Rate whilst Portlaoise returned 11 scores off a 37% Conversion Rate.

This was an incredibly open game with 12 goal attempts returning 4 – 04 and a phenomenal 40 shots in the first half. I think I called it “brilliantly bonkers” on twitter.

I mentioned the frantic pace at the start of Gaoth Dobhair v Crossmaglen as being unprecedented but we may need to review what the baseline for these upper echelon club games are. This game was every bit as frenetic; the first ten minutes produced 17 possessions with fifteen shots of which five were attempts at goal.

When Kilmacud had the ball

yellow = from deadballs; red = goal attempts; black = from play in 1st half; white = from play 2nd half

The most striking aspect of Kilmacud’s shooting was how close in to goal it was. 28 shots in the game with only maybe one coming from outside the optimal shooting zone … and that was from Paul Mannion who, given his form, is allowed shoot from anywhere!

They were 58% (0 – 11 from 19; Expt pts of +1.72) on point attempts from play which is very good. The Conversion Rate was undoubtedly aided by their shot selection however the positive Expt Pts shows that they were still more accurate than the norm.

At a macro level it looks like they are a very accurate team. We have the usual caveat of small sample size but this is the second recent game we have following the county final against St. Judes (didn’t do a write up but did cover the game) and they were 61% (0 – 11 from 18; Expt Pts of +2.71) on point attempts in that game.

Kilmacud had five shots at goal returning 1 – 03 which is about average. In the aforementioned game against St. Jude’s they also had five goal attempts returning 2 – 00.
Indicative of their attacking play those ten attempts at goal have been spread across five different forwards (Mullin x3, Mannion, Burke & Pearson x2 each and one from Horan)

There was nothing especially noteworthy about their free taking (0 – 03 from 4; Expt Pts of –0.65 as the one that Mannion missed was quite easy from the top of the D). Maybe Kilmacud might have a quibble at the dearth of frees as they’ve only had the five shots across the two games (four here and one against St. Jude’s) but Portlaoise and Jude’s combined for eight so there wouldn’t appear to be anything in that.

A quick note on Cunningham who was excellent as the link man. He had six primary assists in all; five for point attempts and one for a saved Mullin goal attempt.

When Portlaoise had the ball

Portlaoise had seven shots at goal one of which was the last minute penalty. Overall they come out with positive returns on these goal attempts (Expt Pts of +0.53) which is
remarkable considering the penalty save. I have penalties being converted ~80% of the time which means that a miss/save takes -2.35 off a team’s Expt Pts.

Overall Portlaoise recorded an Expt Pts of -4.66 so if their goal attempts came out more or less even then everything else must have fallen apart.

They had five point attempts from deadballs returning just 0 – 01 (Expt Pts of -2.36). Whilst two of these were 45s you would expect, in the normal course of things, Brody to have slotted one of them. Cahillane’s sole score was on the 13m line from in front of goal It was effectively a gimme (they are converted in excess of 99% of the time) so whilst one of his misses was from quite a tight angle he basically doesn’t get any benefit from the score to balance this out.

Then there was the point attempts. Portlaoise had 18 point attempts from play scoring just 0 – 06 (33%; Expt Pts of -2.83). Lillis and McCormack were the main culprits combining for 0 – 01 from 10. But more than individuals it was Portlaoise’s almost shoot on sight policy that hurt them. Below is a comparison of the two teams’ point attempts with Kilmacud in white and Portlaoise in black.

There is nothing to say you cannot convert from further out, or indeed that you cannot win by shooting over a team. But there is much greater variance in the returns from where Portlaoise attempted their points from as opposed to Kilmacud’s attempts

Kickouts

Very crudely Kilmacud followed the Dublin template with 73% (16 of 22) of their kickouts going short. They weren’t overly efficient on these however letting Portlaoise get their hands on two, scoring a goal off one and only scoring 0 – 04 from the 14 they did win.

Portlaoise were the inverse with 86% (19 of 22) of their kickouts crossing the 45. That made 25 kickouts in total crossing the 45 with Portlaoise coming out on top 14 – 11. Their poor conversion rates were evident again her however as they scored 1 – 02 from the eight shots off these kickouts whilst Kilmacud scored 0 – 06 off the 8 shots they manufactured.