But part of the reason came from a most unlikely source – an off-day from placed balls for their intercounty man Pauric Mahony. Everyone has off-days from placed balls, but when your team doesn’t win those misses are magnified. When you contribute from play to that extent, a certain amount of leeway is granted to miss one or two placed balls. But the ‘expected points’ ratio (to paraphrase a term from soccer) for placed balls is necessarily higher. It’s almost as if getting stuck in is antithetical to the calmness required to hit frees.

Source: The Irish Times November 22, 2017 19:52 UTC