Sick as a parrot at pieces of eight...
STATISTICS are generally friends of GAA reporters — the amount of puck- outs won and l ost; how many turnovers went for and against a side; the number of times Davy Fitz utters a blaring profanity. A scribe on the Gaelic games beat usually offers an intricate numbers game complicated enough to make Billy Beane, of Moneyball fame, blush.
At certain times of the season, this approach is often transferred to an ‘ analysis’ piece, measuring the historical success or failure of certain teams. Such articles usually appear in preview sections at the beginning of the season or the Championship, but often spring up at particular stages of the summer.
You know the type of thing we’re talking about...
‘Dublin have only won three titles since their 1970s pomp’; ‘Mayo have bottled it on 147 occasions’; ‘Kerry have been the cutest of cute hoors for 47 of their past 52 Championship matches’ etc etc.
When September Comes confidently predicts that this will be a feature of sports pages over the coming days as hacks up and down the country run their rules and callipers over the remainder of the Championship.
We are now, after all, into the ‘business end’ of the season — the knockout stages — and ready for appropriate levels of Wall Streetesque analysis.
Last Saturday’s draw f or the All-Ireland football quarter-finals allows us to get the ball rolling.
But f ear not f ans of t hose traditional bottlers, we’re aiming for a more balanced piece here. Our motivation is not to remind Mayo fans their footballers can’t finish their dinners come September, or Dublin supporters that ‘hype’ is not just a four-letter word or, for that matter, that Cavan used to be quite the stayers in All-Ireland races.
No, we’re here to glance over the impact of those pesky quarter-finals.
While, in principle, it is fair to dismiss teams such as the Dublin outfit of 2005-2009 as ‘chokers’ in comparison to their 1970s predecessors — considering their failure to win or reach an All-Ireland final — ‘Heffo’s Army’ did not have to deal with the additional last-eight hurdle that is a Tyrone or Kerry, as the Dubs did in 2005, ’07 and ’08.
Galway are another county who are often slated for failing to deliver on their promise, but having come through the back door to win Sam in 2001, the Tribesmen have been tripped up on four occasions since in quarter-final matches.
The past two seasons (2011/2012) are the only summers to have seen all four provincial winners reach the semi-final stage. In the 12 years since the qualifiers were introduced, 21 of the 48 provincial champions have fallen in quarter-finals.
When none of the four provincial kings reached the semi-finals in 2010, panic threatened to rise about the structure of the Championship before the 2011 and 2012 seasons reversed that trend.
However, the fact remains that five teams have come through the back door to win the All-Ireland, seeing off provincial champions on the way.
Traditionally, ‘weaker’ counties have also been the victims of teams rebounding through the back door as the likes of Roscommon (2001 and 2010), Laois (2003), Westmeath (2004), Sligo (2007) saw their celebrated provincial achievements trampled on by sides building momentum through the qualifiers.
Some believe it’s a likely development next weekend as Tyrone are 1-2 favourites to overcome Monaghan, while it is highly questionable to rate All-Ireland champions Done- gal as 6-4 underdogs against a Mayo side they managed to see off on their most recent big-day meeting.
There are other indicators which we can take before the Championship clock ticks into business time.
For all the stick they get about their final record, for instance, Mayo have only once failed to follow up a Connacht win with a quarter-final victory. In 2004, 2006, 2011 and 2012, Mayo have won their provincial title and made it through to the last four with a 2009 loss to Meath being their only last-eight defeat.
Kerry, ominously, carry a similar record: winning seven Munster titles since the qualifiers came into existence, with six quarter-final wins. Only their northern nemesis Down (2010) managed to upset that run.
Dublin, meanwhile, have played eight quarter-final ties, losing three — all to the eventual champions.
Cavan have no such hang-ups. They may be 50-1 outsiders for Sam, but the Breffni men have never previously reached the last eight.