Stat attack - performance analysis in the League of Ireland

“How do you get this information?” asks Roberto De Niro’s character Neil McAuley in the film Heat. “It just comes to you,” replies Cezar Kelso. “This stuff just flies through the air. They send this information out. You just need to know how to grab it.”  

In the League of Ireland gone are the days of scrambling to get a VHS tape of your opponent or relying solely on the eyes of a scout sitting in the stand for putting together a plan to take on another team. The day of the data analyst has firmly arrived in football and in the League of Ireland there is now plenty of ammunition for managers in the top flight of our domestic league.

How would you get on if we asked you who last season in the Premier Division was the:

  1. Player with the most crosses? 
  2. Player with the most passes into the box? 
  3. Most fouled player? 
  4. Player with the most interceptions in opposition half? 
  5. Club with least amount of short passes and most amount of long passes? 
  6. Player with the most long passes? 

Well the answers would all be known by the clubs here and if you read to the end of this article you’ll also find the answers! 

Since last year the FAI has worked together with the Premier Division clubs to procure a data analytics provider for the League of Ireland. Driven by Ger Dunne, the FAI’s head of performance analysis, in 2019 the FAI hired InStat to provide statistical analysis for League of Ireland clubs for that season.

The association also contributed one third of the cost of the service – with the clubs paying the remainder.

The clubs were required to upload a video of their games with InStat providing a data analytics report back within a day of the game. InStat are amongst an increasing number of sports performance analysis companies that are providing such scouting platform services around the world. 

These systems combine data and video on individual players and teams. Subscirbers can review club’s previous games and can pick out opposition free kicks, corners, goals, where they scored from, how teams counter attacked. You can even get  video clips of every touch a player makes in a game. 

The data allows players to be ranked and detailed analysis of specific elements of games. For the A Licence and Pro Licence courses similar systems such as Hudl are used in the match analysis section of the course.

As an example Gerard Moran (@Ger_Moran1) recently produced a detailed report on corners taken in the Premier Division in 2020 noting that 20% of goals had come from corners and you can get deep into the weeds with his detailed report here if you so desire.



On a recent extratime.ie Sportscast we spoke with former UCD manager Collie O’Neill about his experience of working with such systems. “Video footage was something I’ve been in to as I was always thought it was a great tool to educate the players,” said O’Neill. 

“It is one thing on the training pitch painting different scenarios for them but another thing giving them the video to back it up so that they can see the picture a lot better. 

“[With data systems] you can find little loopholes to try and get one up on your opponents, t how to improve your own team and have a look at your own weaknesses.

“I wouldn’t just look at the number of pass completion as you could have a player with 95% but they are five or ten yard passes backwards or sideways. It would be maybe more on the defensive side if too many crosses coming in from the right why are they targeting that full back?" 

InStat produced an end of season report for the 2019 Premier Division season and it was from that report we posed our earlier questions. So have a look through to see how you get on.

  1. Player with most crosses? Sean Gannon
  2. Player with most passes into the box? Jack Byrne
  3. Most fouled player? Danny Mandroiu
  4. Player with the most interceptions in opposition half? Liam Scales
  5. Club with least amount of short passes and most amount of long passes? Finn Harps
  6. Player with the most long passes? James Talbot

    About Macdara Ferris

    Macdara Ferris is a contributor since 2007 to Hoops Scene (Shamrock Rovers' match day programme) and is the co-author of two books on Shamrock Rovers - 'Tallaght Time: Shamrock Rovers 2009 to 2012' (with Karl … View Full Profile