Glen Rovers' puckout maps from first two games show concentration on middle third

Having looked at Sarsfields’ puckouts yesterday, the lens now shifts to their opponents this weekend – Glen Rovers.

The northside club have announced themselves back in the Premier Senior grade with two wins from two, both of them convincing enough, but without the edge of dominance Sars have shown in their opening pair of fixtures.

On the numbers, Glen’s puckouts have been a mixed bag.

Glen Rovers’ venues have been Páirc Uí Rinn and Midleton – two very different places, and they approached them differently.

Against Erin’s Own, they actually lost the puckout battle over 60 minutes, by a small margin. Erin’s Own retained 58.33% of their restarts (21/36), while Glen managed 57.14% (16/28).

With the wind in the opening period they went long, often central too, looking to hit someone in the half forward line. Patrick Horgan was more often than not the target they were seeking. Occasionally Micheál Mullins would be Cathal Hickey’s target in the midfield pockets. This would be something they’d lean more on against Fr O’Neill’s, particularly with the difference Ger Millerick made when he picked up Horgan from the start.

Even against the wind, Rovers went long still against Erin’s Own, Hickey focussing primarily on his right flank, or down through the middle. However, as Erin’s Own improved and Glen’s performance tailed off, the northsiders let their puckout supremacy from the first half slip, and they won less than half their restarts in the second period.

And still, they were comfortable winners. In part because of how persistent Erin’s Own were with going long and right, both with and against the breeze. They had very little success on the flanks, a similar story to their 4-30 to 3-15 defeat to Sars.

Against O’Neill’s, Glen Rovers found themselves against the elements from the start. Midfielders Adam O’Donovan and Micheál Mullins, as well as Robert Downey at centre-back, were key to how they played.

Nine of Hickey’s 13 first-half restarts landed between Glen Rovers’ 45 and O’Neill’s 65. Only four went beyond that, of which they lost all but one.

O’Neill’s were very solid in defence, hence the Glen’s relatively low tally of 1-19, and only 0-11 from play.

But it’s no coincidence Mullins top scored from play. In both halves he constantly made himself available around the middle third, as did O’Donovan. When one of the two found themselves in trouble, Downey was positioned there as the safety net, allowing them to pop off an easy short pass. Downey would then make the deep switch into the far corner.

This in particular is why corner-forwards Stephen Lynam and Simon Kennefick caused all sorts of problems for an otherwise rock solid O’Neill’s defence.

Only one puckout across the two games from Hickey has landed shorter than Rovers’ own 45. That came in the second half against Fr O’Neill’s, when they had the wind. Bar one other restart in that latter half that landed just shy of the half-way line, the other 10 restarts were all sent deep into O’Neill’s half.

Glen Rovers won six of those 10, Eoin O’Leary and Patrick Horgan the regular target men.

Overall they finished with a 68% success rate from their own puckouts against Fr O’Neill’s (17/25), while their opponents finished with 61.29% (21/36). Nine of those 21 puckouts won by O’Neill’s were short, though. Without factoring in those restarts, their success rate falls to 44.44%.

Paudie O’Sullivan is a top goalkeeper and is reliable from puckouts, but O’Neill’s attempts to go long with so many of their restarts found very little success.

Adam Lynch and Liam Coughlan forced so many turnovers between them at 2 and 4, while Dave Dooling was stuck to Deccie Dalton from start to finish, and did a stellar job in curtailing his influence from play.

Neither of Glen’s performances were flawless, but both were efficient. Job done, with little fuss. In total, Glen Rovers finished with a puckout success rate of 18/26 (69.23%) with the wind, and a total of 15/27 (55.55%) won against the breeze.

Tomás Mulcahy will have no worry that his team are ‘peaking too soon’. Nor will his Glen Rovers side fear anyone, at any stage in this championship.

Sarsfields represents the stiffest examination yet this wekeend. But the Glen will relish it.