There will be much spoken after the weekend about the uncompetitiveness of the Leinster Senior Football Championship but a closer look at the figures reveals that yesterday’s four quarter-finals produced the lowest aggregate difference between the teams in the past five years.
Dublin’s 27-point victory over Laois might stand out but even that was not the biggest win in the period with Meath beating Wicklow by 28 points in 2021.
The aggregate difference between the teams was 43 points this year, lower than the 45 points in 2020, the 51 points in 2021, and the 57 points that separated the four protagonists in both 2019 and last year.
The four games produced a total score of 11 goals and 114 points, six points more than in each of the previous two years but a full 33 points down on the high mark of 180 points scored in 2019.
Diving deeper back into the history books there has been a marked increase in the number of scores at the corresponding stage. Back in what is seen by many as the halcyon days on the 1970’s there were only 95 points scored in the four quarter-finals of 1973, and an aggregate winning margin of 19 points, still equating to nearly five points per game.
If entertainment is viewed as the number of times the fans will rise to their feet in celebration then the modern era wins hands down, though if it is close games that we enjoy the most as dispassionate observers then this year’s progress still has a way to go.
A comparison to the Ulster Football Championship figures for the same years below backs up the contention that it is a more competitive competition with the average winning margin in Unlster over the past five years being seven points in Ulster and a little over 12 in Leinster.
That’s not a modern phenomenon though with the average in Ulster in 2013, 2003, 1993, 1983 and 1973 being just over four points and the equivalent number in Leinster coming in at just over six points.
We will be looking at one particular aspect of the GAA Championships throughout this season, building up a picture of how both football and hurling might be changing.
