Dean focuses on a landmark, but who’s counting?
JUST after 9pm last Tuesday evening, a peculiar thing happened: James Milner took his place amongst a list of giants in world football — Neymar, Rooney, Ibrahimović and Xavi.
By the time his right-foot corner had been headed to the net by Roberto Firmino to put Liverpool 5-0 up in the first leg of a Champions League semifinal against Roma, it was official: the 32-year-old, who is like the anti-Neymar in terms of a publicity-seeking, playboy lifestyle, was part of the record books.
With that pass, he had the most ‘assists’ in a single UEFA Champions League campaign, his tally of nine putting him one ahead of Neymar and Wayne Rooney and two ahead of Ibrahimović and Xavi.
Log on to UEFA.com and the full statistical breakdown of Milner’s contribution to Liverpool’s campaign so far is there in detail: in the nine games of the tournament phase he featured in, he not only played a significant part in his team’s scoring record, but managed to cover 100 kilometres.
‘You have all these world class players and the man who shows up with the most assists is James Milner. That is really cool.’ Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp caught the moment perfectly.
Another unlikely hero with praise showered on him this past week was the Portumna hurler turned Connacht rugby captain John Muldoon.
As he went walking off into the sunset in fine style, battering Leinster in the process in his retirement send-off in the Pro14 league, the career of a local legend was held up with pride: 327 competitive appearances over 17 years, a record. To go with the record for appearances in the same tournament – 252. Of Connacht’s 117 matches over the past four seasons, the durable Muldoon featured in a remarkable 107.
A career less ordinary — laid out in technicolour detail for all to marvel over. Why he chose to break from character and kick a late conversion? Because in all that time, he had never scored points against an inter-provincial rival. To players, the fine print matters.
And then compare and contrast that to one other story.
A couple of weeks ago, Dublin footballer Dean Rock was available for interview at Carton House.
Now Dean’s career has been well charted: son of Hill 16 darling Barney, he has four All-Irelands, five National Leagues and an All-Star to his name.
Dublin’s record has been the subject of forensic analysis, yet one notable aspect had remained unremarked upon — until Rock dropped it almost casually into conversation that he hadn’t missed a single League or Championship game for Dublin since the start of 2015. He mentioned a figure in the mid-50s in terms of consecutive appearances.
In fact, a trawl through previous match reports found that he was underselling himself. Since returning from knee surgery that ruled him out of action in the spring of 2014, he has appeared in every one of the 59 League and Championship games since — 52 as a starter, seven off the bench. A remarkable record on a team that has claims to being one of Gaelic football’s greatest.
It’s not recorded how many ‘assists’ he had in that time. James Milner, eat your heart out.
Had Rock not volunteered a personal record that was clearly a source of personal pride — if he features in Dublin’s Leinster Championship opener at the end of this month he will hit 60, a landmark in its own right — it might have escaped unnoticed.
Recently, this column bemoaned the lack of an official online historical database for even the most basic of records in Gaelic games – National League, Championship, All-Star teams – you name it.
And the same applies to the live sporting arena. As the social media element to live sport expands at an exponential rate, so too does the appetite for live data, beyond the running score.
The GAA’s provision of match highlights and clips via gaa.ie represents a simple way of packaging the games and players for an online audience.
On Saturday week, the race for the Liam MacCarthy Cup begins with All-Ireland champions Galway against Offaly. Hurler of the Year Joe Canning is set to feature. Supporters would love to pore over his career stats. His scoring rate in previous matches against Offaly.
The next day, the race for the Sam Maguire Cup begins in earnest with Mayo versus Galway. Which of the featured players has the most competitive appearances? Is any player on the verge of a personal milestone?
Counties now announce team line-ups via a snazzy, online graphic, often featuring individual cut-outs of the players. Imagine the added value if a player’s list of appearances was included.
How many personal milestones are coming up that haven’t been documented or publicised?
These things are worth recording. And publicising.
Now that would be really cool.