The Sam Maguire Cup is up for grabs on Sunday
They say goals win games, but maybe it’s more accurate to say that it’s the ability to keep them out is the most important trait when it comes to winning Sam Maguire.
Take the Dublin side of last year, for example. They conceded two on their first day out against Laois, on a day when they scored 4-30 and didn’t concede again until the All-Ireland final against Kerry.
The year previous, Kerry conceded just one goal on their run to Sam Maguire when Dublin’s Cormac Costello found the bottom corner of the net with a brilliant finish. Rewind back further to 2021 when Tyrone, in a truncated championship, conceded one goal in five outings – that coming against Donegal in an Ulster semi-final.
In this year’s All-Ireland final, two of the game’s tightest defences go head-to-head. Galway have conceded just once in nine championship outings. Armagh’s record isn’t quite as impressive with Blaine Hughes picking the ball out of his net three times, including twice against Down in Ulster and then against Kerry last time out.
But in a game that is widely expected to go down to the wire, how significant might it be that when the sides drew in the group stages, it was Armagh who managed to manufacture a goal?
PREDICTOR BACKING ARMAGH TO WIN IT, BY A POINT
We’ve been following the number crunchers at X account @StatsandSolos with a watchful eye this season where GAA enthusiast and catastrophe modelling and actuarial pricing professional Gerard McMahon has built a model which attempts to predict the outcome of games.
It’s a clever tool which gives ratings for goals and points for and against each team by looking at and adjusting past results. For example, landing 1-17 against a Division 1 side is far more heavily rated than kicking the same tally against a minnow.
It also makes allowances for home and away games and for the time of year the game is played while the value of older games to the model reduces over time. Each game and each competition is simulated thousands of times and produces a likely outcome according to the numbers.
And with pundits and bookmakers alike torn on Sunday’s outcome, McMahon’s model points towards a one-point Armagh win. It’s worth noting that the model was within a single point of predicting the correct scoreline after 70 minutes of last year’s All-Ireland final.
Check out: https://x.com/statsandsolos/status/1815477976135246153?s=46
NUMBER OF THE DAY: 63
The amount of games so far in this year’s football championship that have led us to the final. The new format is not to everyone’s liking but there has been no shortage of action.
