Yeāve a good few examples of refs giving ye nod in all Ireland finals in fairness.
Aah lovely. Iād forgotten your bitter hatred of all things Dublin Gaa. Your yearly meltdown on here the morning after the football final will be sorely missed. This is a cruel virus indeed.
I donāt have a hatred of things Dublin gaa at all and youāve made up the yearly meltdown part. Dublin are an amazing team, they have everything stacked in their favour and get preferential treatment from referees on top of that, kind of like Kilkenny at their peak but more like the all blacks I would say.
Iāve mentioned nothing of Rockās general play, my point was solely on the notion that Rock is some dead eye dick who just bangs things over when it comes to frees, when history has shown that he has games where he melts down.
Poor auld juh gets a bit flustered if you say anything that isnāt high praise about Dublin and tends to start making up things you never said.
The donāt foul guy had some chart back there a few years ago that showed Rock was absolutely deadly from dead balls and his range was much better than OāConnors.
I always think discounting frees in general is one of the stranger truisms of gaa. A free from out on the sideline 50m out is given less weight than a tap over fisted point from straight in front of the goal.
The Free taker too isnāt just some job decided by the toss of a coin or something either its a job given to the best most accurate striker of a ball on the team. An absolutely vital role.
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That piece is on one game and states OāConnor is the best around. Your man Dontfoul consistently rates OāConnor as on another level. This deep dive has Rock ahead on raw conversion rate but OāConnor well ahead when difficulty is factored in, which seems itās Rock who benefits from having handy ones rather than the other way around:
this was a recent one he did where Seanie O Shea is taking over from Rock who āhas always been out on his ownā. Again, Iād just rather Rock on a free than O connor
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No graph to back that assertion up there.
He has the graphs up on his other article and OāConnorās range is clear to see.
That is hugely impressive.
Thereās a table of expected points with a clear explanation of what it ranks the players on. Hereās a few graphs on OāConnor I could see on his blog
And what does it say about Rock immediately after?
That doesnāt breakdown where the frees were from.
This does.
It says Rock has joined him. Youāll remember I was arguing against the notion that Rock was superior.
Great, thanks for that isolated plotting of OāConnorās range. Hereās a table that rates relative conversion and difficult:
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Separate topic but players who were selected almost exclusively for their ability with the dead ball
Iāll start with Maurice Sheridan
Cillian OāConnor
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Ian harte