So I was reading Michael Hannon's column in Cavan's local newspaper, 'The Anglo Celt', this morning and happened upon one of those sentences that make you react with a 'hang on, did I just read that right?'
Hannon was in the middle discussing the merits of a Moneyball approach to Gaelic football team preparation and mentioned a talk on data analysis he attended, where Dublin's former stats man Ray Boyne – you'll have seen plenty of his stat graphics on our site this year – addressed the crowd in attendance.
What Hannon and co learned was that Dublin and other 'bigger' counties put a hell of a lot of investment into this area. I'll allow the former Cavan defender to explain:
The point was raised on the night that the bigger counties, and the best funded counties were now spending more on data analytics than Leitrim, for example, spend on preparing their entire senior county team for the year.
Hannon's piece on how Dublin used their stat analysis to help them win that elusive All Ireland, under Pat Gilroy, is very interesting but unfortunately doesn't seem to be online. But if anyone can get their hands on the December 11 (yes I'm very late to the party) edition of the Celt then I would recommend reading it.
You can hear more of Hannon's column on the Celt website here.
