Five days to throw-in

THANKS to Vodafone Big Match stats some interesting comparisons and a few similarities have been made between the styles of both Dublin and Kerry in the current era and that of the 1970s.

The stats are drawn from an analysis of the 1976 All-Ireland football final clash between the sides – which Dublin won by 3-8 to 0-10 – and also the provincial finals played by both counties this summer.

What is of particular interest is how the short-passing game has come to dominate, with the long kick losing its dominance from the mid-1970s.

In the 1976 final Dublin and Kerry combined with a total of 115 long kicks, which dwarfs the total of just 20 from this year’s provincial finals from the two counties – an 84 per cent decrease.

The flip side is the emergence of hand pass as the preferred method of distributing possession. Dublin this year used 2.3 times the amount of hand passes in their Leinster final clash with Wexford as they did in the 1976 final, while Kerry used 2.1 times the number of hand passes in their clash with Cork compared to the decider 35 years ago.

There are some other notable changes, not least at an individual level for the great rivals. Dublin, for instance, have heralded in a dramatic change in their shooting styles.

In the 1976 final they had 15 shots for scores from outside the 21-yard line but by this year’s Leinster final that had almost doubled, to 29.

By contrast, in the Leinster final this year they had just five shots from inside the 21-yard line, compared to 13 in the 1976 All-Ireland decider.

Dublin have also moved away from use of the solo run; in the 1976 final they went toe-to-hand 64 times but in this year’s Leinster final it was down by 44 per cent to just 36 solo runs.