Where to get some good GAA stats and a living Gaelic games icon gets a statue in his honour.
Stats amore
The GAA is finally getting its act together on stats. Well, let me correct that a bit. You can now get access to a decent level of GAA stats. Counties have been compiling, and using, stats for years but they very rarely flowed out to us fans in the stands. The lads in HQ, or on RTE, are still miles behind, and we’re lucky to get some possession stats and wides on live games. The phrase ‘could do better’ is being kind about it.
Anyway, away from that bugbear you can find good info now on Twitter. Two handy ones to follow if you want a few numbers to back up your bar stool opinions are @gaelicstats and @dontfoul.
The former is run by Kildare’s stats man Rob Carroll and drops lots of helpful numbers about hand passes v kick passes and the like. We should pass on his details to Pat Spillane.
The latter is a wonderful resource of very detailed analysis of possessions, shots, success rates and loads of other stuff. It usually appears a few days after a game and it is a brilliant way to delve behind the clichés and find out what’s really going on out on the field.
Anyway, @gaelicstats dropped this gem today
Watching that Ulster clash we really enjoyed it and there were some wonderful scores kicked by both teams. Maybe stats don’t always live up to what you expect. That makes them all the more interesting. Keep up the good work lads.
Living statue
Wexford town recently unveiled a statue of Nicky Rackard, Cloyne have Christy Ring and Carrick-on-Suir will soon have an effigy of GAA founder Michael Davin but living icons of our national games haven’t had any statues put up just yet.
That will change on Saturday when Kerry’s legendary player and manager Mick O’Dwyer has a statue of himself unveiled in his home town Waterville, according to a piece in the Irish Examiner.
“To be very honest, I know very little about it,” O’Dwyer is quoted as saying in the article. “A group of people came to me and said that they had decided to go ahead with this after a full meeting of the people of Waterville and I gave my blessing.
“Normally they wait until someone is dead before they do something like this so it’s nice to be recognised by your own people in such a way.”
It’s a fitting tribute for a man who devoted his life to the GAA until he hung up his tracksuit last season. Maybe it will inspire more Irish towns to recognize their heroes, while they are still around to appreciate it.
