Hypothetical assessment points to practical value

December 1st, 2009 by Kevin Egan

Let’s paint a hypothetical picture for a moment, where two clubs are set to meet each other in a crucial provincial championship tie. Club A is playing in their fourth provincial campaign this decade, and this year has reached their third final in four attempts, including one win and one runner up spot in their previous two tries. Club B is playing in their third provincial campaign, and has reached their first final, after two first round exits in their previous forays.

This year, Club A has knocked out the reigning provincial champions, and secured another win away from home. Club B has played both their games at home against moderate opposition, and indeed was very lucky to emerge from their semi final intact, with many pundits feeling that they were certainly no better and possibly a point or two worse than their opponents on the day.

To round it all off, Club B is missing their two best players since the first round, going some way to explaining the dip in form for their most recent match.

Looking at all these stats, it’s clear that Club A should be favourite in any hypothetical meeting – except that the meeting is not hypothetical at all, it’s happening this weekend; and Club B are favourites. This is a ridiculous state of affairs which reflects little more than the county of origin of the two clubs involved.

Of course Kerry football is stronger than that in Clare, however it doesn’t necessarily follow that the respective club representatives follow that trend. This summer Westmeath received an unholy beating at the hands of Dublin in Croke Park – but yet just over one week ago, Garrycastle deservedly secured a place in the Leinster final by taking out Ballyboden St Endas. The same is true for Clara, who reversed county form by taking out St Laurences, despite Kildare having comfortably beaten Offaly back in May.

Kerins O’Rahillys have a lot of big names in their squad and players like Barry John Keane and Barry John Walsh look set for big things in the future, but Kilmurry-Ibrickane are genuine, hardened contenders in this competition and their win over Drom-Broadford is better form than anything Kerins have managed this year. The Kerins team that beat Moyle Rovers in Tralee is largely the team that will line out for Sunday’s game, and the standard of that semi-final was extremely poor, with both sides committing a huge number of errors, even allowing for the conditions. The majority of the scores were either scrappy frees or bad mistakes from the opposition, while the goal that decided the game was a looping shot that was somewhat fortunate, and even then only came about because of a shot for goal that failed to even cross the end line.

Of course Kilmurry-Ibrickane aren’t a free scoring outfit either, but they can suffocate teams and they do tend to eke out enough scores to win. A two point handicap is huge here, and while there is plenty of value in backing the Clare Champions to win, odds of 10/11 about Kilmurry-Ibrickane to win plus two points are too good to turn down and warrant a 3pt bet.

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