Opinion: Cillian O Connor

121 posts…Cillian O’Connor is box office

Sorry @Gman didn’t mean to directly reply to you

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fuck you @padjo

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Lance Armstrong

Fair enough.

Lolzers.

:grinning:

That table shows that Rock has scored 3.7/33 above expectation: 11.2%
O’Connor has scored 7.4/112 above expectation: 6.6%

Scoring 11.2% more of your frees than expected is far better than scoring 6.6% more of your frees than expected.

I think the blogger’s statistical conclusion from the table is misguided. He has O’Connor top of the list because of the volume of shots he has taken and his above average success rate gives a greater total points above expectation. His argument about including volumes is that it has misses too so the greater the number of shots, the more you might regress to getting average points. In a comparison between free takers being above expectation, I think that’s very misleading. The top players are above the mean and so multiplying by volume is just rewarding volume. He’s borrowing that logic from soccer but in soccer there is an argument that having a high XG recognises your ability to get into good situations. And so a high XG is a positive stat. You can’t include that for someone taking frees in gaelic football. A high XP is a positive stat for the team, because they have won a free in a scoreable situation. It’s not a positive stat for the guy taking the free. It’s just a target.

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Wayne Mccarthy.

Again though the only on the team for the frees men are totally looked down on even though they can literally be the winning and losing of the game.

https://www.mayonews.ie/sports/34001-cillian-o-connor-makes-gaa-history

Some interesting stats on o Connor in this

:grinning:

I wouldn’t be surprised if this is O Connor against Beggan. Interesting poll either way

It is.

I’d be interested to see how McManus compares with O’Connor inside the scoring range.

O’Connor is a decent free taker, he has played pretty much the last decade for one of the top 4 teams in the country but he just isn’t a top class forward and is a hateful cunt to boot. His scoring stats are skewed by the amount of handy frees he scores and the style of football Mayo play greatly benefits him.

Latest free kick analysis from dontfoul

The stats don’t really reflect too well on Cillian O’Connor there which goes back to the point that any half decent forward who is steady enough of frees would have his stats severely bumped up as Mayo’s free taker.

Pretty much confirms my eye test on his free taking. He was once a very reliable free taker but has become increasingly erratic in recent years.

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Iv long held the view that Michael Murphy is wildly overrated, not surprised to see him at the bottom of that list with O’Connor. He is still a fine footballer but talk of him being one of the best over the past 20 years makes no sense to me, below average from frees and usually very little from play.

Any lads that follow football able to tell me if lads that kick from the ground are more accurate in this list?

I’ve never understood why a fella would choose to kick a free out of his hands

Rock and O’Shea definitely kick from the ground for hard ones

We already have an expert panel of freetakers to settle this notion

Good to see the updated analysis. As noted, the last 4 years of scores hadn’t been included and Rock completely obliterates O Connor. Particularly from outside range, which O Connor struggles with.

Again, from my original point, I’d take Rock every time over O Connor for a free kick. The stats more than prove it too.

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I still maintain he is rewarding volume by ranking by cumulative expected points. So the guy who is a little better than average but takes more frees is ranked higher than the guy who is much better than average but gets fewer chances.

But there isn’t a simple way of doing it. If you rely too much on expected points then Began goes way out in front because he’s the best at scoring points that the others find challenging. But is that who the best free taker is?

So maybe there isn’t a single better metric, I just don’t agree with the method he uses and his explanation about regression to the mean.

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These stats can’t factor in the pressure of the kick either. How many of those kicks for Rock for example were taken when they were 10+ points up?