THE EVOLUTION OF HURLING
The game is moving at pace away from its traditions, leading to concern about the direction it is taking – an in-depth study now examines the impact of the many emerging trends
IT WAS interesting to be sat in the sun-splashed surrounds of Nowlan Park and see, firsthand, the almost nonchalant manner in which TJ Reid chalked up 1-18 against Wexford in the third round of the Allianz Hurling League. Reid’s personal haul fits neatly with the narrative swirling around hurling right now and the questions being asked about where the game is going in terms of rising scoring levels and free-taking contests.
His tally is the very same total the entire Kilkenny team put up in the 2010 All-Ireland final, when Reid was captain and Tipperary stopped the five in a row. That team held a claim to be the greatest. So scoring patterns are certainly changing.
However, there was clearly so much to be admired in how Reid compiled such a tally.
The 14 frees, and one 65, slotted over were testament to the quality of ball-striking and remarkable accuracy that now characterises the top free-takers on all the top teams, and that only comes from countless hours of dedication to practice and attention to detail. At one point late in the first quarter,
‘THERE IS NO METRIC AT ALL WHERE LIMERICK ARE NOT TOP FIVE’
there was a sense of shock when the 2015 Hurler of the Year and fivetime All-Star failed to lift the ball properly from a close-range free, only for him to improvise and bang the sliotar over the bar on the bounce.
His goal, too, was a lesson in attacking instinct: when Alan Murphy’s ground stroke was saved, he controlled it on his stick and, thinking one step ahead, didn’t take it to hand so as to avoid the tackle – instead just blazing it to the net off his stick.
Of the three points from play he also scored, one involved a mesmerising solo run through the heart of the Wexford defence when he batted the ball off the turf with his hand and back into his palm before pointing.
When Tony Kelly hit the 20-point mark against Dublin, it showcased another of the modern game’s great players but it also stoked the same debate about the weight of the sliotar, the size of players’ hurleys, the strength and conditioning of the game’s elite teams and whether corrective action will have to be taken — the reason why GAA president Larry McCarthy has appointed former Kilkenny chairman Ned Quinn to head up a committee on same.
At the Gaelic Grounds, Limerick had 11 points on the board by the first water break.
At that point they were heading for a 44-point game average.
They ran the bench in the second half and slowed up to finish on 33.
Well, if the GAA’s new committee want to examine how the game is changing, then they would be well served delving into the hugely detailed, forensic study of the game that Paul O’Brien has published as part of his recent Masters in Sports Performance Analysis. It’s all there. The last three All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championships (2018-2020) analysed in full, all 77 games.
It incorporates the Leinster and Munster SHCs and All-Ireland knockout series. Undertaken with the performance analysis aid of Johnny Bradley, the relevant programme director at Carlow IT, and Denise Martin, a performance analysis lecturer at TUD.
All puck-outs (5,128), turnovers (6,400) and shots (5,695) are coded.
The result is a comprehensive picture that should inform the thinking of management teams and coaches alike, complete with heat maps, tables and statistical detail.
O’Brien isn’t just coming at it from an academic viewpoint – as a manager and coach himself, a qualified hurling tutor and embedded in the GAA academy in DCU, he wanted more to go on than loose opinion on the game.
No surprise, Limerick jump off the page.
‘I am involved in coaching and with teams. Hurling more so than football, there have been different styles and different teams have won. So what actually contributes to winning a game is interesting to any coach,’ said O’Brien.
‘I wasn’t coming at it just from a numbers perspective.
‘People are saying “Limerick do this… and they’re successful” or “Tipperary do this… and they’re successful” and “Dublin aren’t good because of this” or “Wexford fall down because of that” – that kind of stuff.
‘We are trying to get an overall picture of what hurling is really all about. A lot of time with coaching, stuff that works in football is transferred to hurling. And they’re completely different sports. No relation to each other at all other than the scoring systems that are in play.
‘Hurling is still very much a turnover-based game. Because of the skill involved in trying to work the ball up the field, it breaks down.
‘Where scores are coming from, a third or less of scores are coming from your own puck-out. So pretty much for most teams, two-thirds of scores are coming from an opposition puck-out or a turnover where you would imagine that the opposition have the upper hand because they have the ball. But it’s turned over, their defensive shape isn’t as good and it’s a little bit easier to score. Stuff like that is important. ‘Because if you look at the last three years, Limerick Galway and Tipp have been the most successful teams. But less of their scores are coming from that structured puck-out. ‘In 2018 there was a lot of talk about Nickie Quaid’s puck-out being so central to Limerick’s success but it was still only a part of it. For me, Limerick are so far ahead of everyone because there is no metric at all that I looked at where Limerick weren’t a top-five team. And they were a top one or two in a lot of them.
‘Own puck-outs. Tackles. Scoring efficiency from play. Then add in they are top one or two from shots from play. Add that all together and it’s evident that they’re the best.’
He says it’s clear how performance analysis feeds into the joinedup thinking of manager John Kiely and coach Paul Kinnerk, both of whom come from teaching backgrounds.
‘I would rate that Seán O’Donnell, their performance analyst, is probably the best in the country because he is so linked in with Paul Kinnerk and John Kiely. I’d imagine Paul Kinnerk, with his educational background, is open to information coming in and figuring out how that
info is useful in terms of winning and in terms of game design.
‘Without a question they’re the best. Kiely’s rant a few weeks ago about the frees and the simulation, in my opinion he was so annoyed at that because Limerick foul the most. And they foul the most in nonthreatening areas.
‘I’ve heat maps of the foul areas of different teams. There’s talk about these cynical fouls when there is a goal opportunity on. A lot of teams, that D area, there’s a considerable amount of fouls.’
O’Brien doesn’t buy some of the alarmist noises during the current League campaign about hurling going the way of a non-contact sport.
‘On the contact element of it, there’s a congested amount of bodies in that middle area. If you’re going to try and walk ball through there, there’s going to be contact.
‘It bugs me to an extent. Football is considered to be this game where there is loads of tackling going on but when Dublin played Roscommon in the first round of the League, and even Dublin-Kerry, the players are carrying the ball up beyond the 45 before there’s a tackle made.
‘Limerick are the best team. They tackle most. Even though they’ve more possession than the opposition, they tackle more. So if the best team are tackling more than anyone, surely that’s a deficiency in the other teams.’
Kilkenny beat Limerick in the 2019 All-Ireland semi-final – interrupted a three in a row.
Without an All-Ireland themselves since 2015, this year’s League has seen Brian Cody’s side changing style, controlling and protecting possession more. Are the old ways of looking at hurling in a simplified, but very successful, manner good enough any more?
‘One of the pictures I put up on Twitter was a couple of puck-out maps. Obviously, teams are hitting their corner-backs and there’s still a lot going to wing-forward. Every team has a variety of puck-outs – hitting the middle zone. Hitting pockets.
‘Kilkenny haven’t done that the last three years. I was at the Dublin-Kilkenny League game and they’re now adding variety. They’re changing because they have to. They have no choice but to change. Because they can’t keep hitting the ball long because there are so many bodies in that puck-out landing zone.
If they’re working the ball short, it’s not a case of hitting the ball to the corner-back and he hits it over the half-back line.
‘That’s not the way it works. The way the ball is moved to the scoring area is important. It will be interesting to see how they go this year.
‘They beat Limerick because they outworked Limerick, for the first quarter in particular, in 2019. That’s what that result stems back to. They were just ferocious in the tackle. So the idea that tackling has gone out of it is wrong.
‘I looked at some research in other sports the past year. This thing of no crowds being there is a factor.
‘I broke down whether own puckout, opposition puck-out or turnover is the origin of a score. I have that broken down per location on the pitch as well.
‘If I’m Limerick and Séamus Flanagan and I turn over a short puckout, the conversion rate in that third of the field is better than any other area of the field. So it’s that gegenpressing in soccer. When they do it, the conversion rate is better.
‘Coming from a coaching perspective, I think analysis is a waste of time unless it’s directly linked into the game plan and what’s being coached on the pitch. There has to be a coherent link with the players.
‘That’s the angle I come to performance analysis from. It needs to be player-centred. There’s no point in information being there and the management not sharing the what and the why. “We’re doing this because…” That’s important.’
Hurling then is evolving at a pace, going through its own tactical evolution and systems set-up which is moving the game away from some of its traditions, including the age-old one-on-one contest for possession.
So has O’Brien any worries as a coach, fan and an analyst? ‘I certainly wouldn’t have any worries at all. I really wouldn’t because I think all of these things go in phases.
‘And I actually don’t think there is anything particularly different happening in this League at the moment. Teams are trying out different fellas. It’s a glorified Walsh Cup or Waterford Crystal Cup.
‘Kilkenny-Wexford was a prime example. They’re playing each other in a few weeks’ time when it actually counts.
‘Limerick have their set-up but they will adapt slightly for ‘x’ problem that Kilkenny or Cork will present.
‘Cork in a lot of areas have fired really well the past three years. But there’s other areas defensively that they’re down towards the bottom. I do think Cork are well placed to join in with that top three and win.
‘Limerick have played 19 games in the last three years. It’s only when you see teams over multiple games that you see what they are actually about.
‘There’s a lot going on.
‘That’s part of the reason for looking at three years and 77 games.
‘It moves things on from this element of drama because something happens in one particular game, whereas the more data you have, the more you can see what the trends are.’
‘ANALYSIS IS A WASTE OF TIME UNLESS LINKED TO A GAME PLAN’