point shots are becoming a waste of time

It's football, folks - but not as we know it.

The FRC swept through the game like a breath of fresh air two years ago and introduced a raft of new rules that promised to help return the game to it's more traditional catch-and-kick roots.

The blanket defence would be no more. Fleet-footed forwards could again be given a platform to wow us with their mercurial talents.

The FRC delivered on its remit in spades. The past two seasons of the All-Ireland championship have been rife with high-scoring games where no lead seems safe. The boom is back. So are the fans. And so is hope!

If one rule did stick out from the rest, however, it may have been the introduction of the two-point arc. A massive departure from the game's traditional scoring system.

Originally coupled with the inflated award of four points for a goal, the two-pointer has remained - and arguably thrived - while the original tally of three points for raising a green flag was quickly reverted to.

With all the excitement of the last two summers, not too many people stopped to wonder about the long-term effects of the rule changes and, in particular, the two-point arc.

In the early stages of this year's All-Ireland final, Mayo - as they had all summer - sent one two-point effort after another towards goal, with only mild success, leaving many onlookers to dismiss the tactic as early nerves, naivety even - or simply insist "sure that's Mayo, heavy metal football, they don't give a sh**e!"

"Not too sure that was the right call," our own Marty Morrissey offered after a ninth-minute Jordan Flynn wide from distance.

"Three two-point efforts for Mayo but it's nought from three. It's been a feature of their game so far this year," Eamonn Fitzmaurice added on co-comms when Darragh Beirne quickly followed Flynn's miss with a long-range effort that dropped into Shane Murphy's hands in the Kerry goal.

But in the data-driven modern game, it became apparent that there was a method to the Connacht men's madness.

There was nothing off-the-cuff about Mayo's early barrage - even as they faced into the Hill 16 end of Croke Park. The 'non-scoring' goal, we're told. The men in the changed white strip kept on firing.

In the end, Mayo had 13 two-point attempts from play on Sunday 26 July, landing only four of them - a measly 31% strike rate. But those four successful efforts garnered eight big points and built them a platform for victory.

Kerry, for their part, attempted five two-pointers from play - all but three of them coming in the game's final minutes as they chased down Mayo's advantage. David Clifford's beautiful right-footed effort was the only 'doubler' that found its mark.

The pair (Kerry with two, Mayo with one) attempted three two-point frees between them, none of which were scored.

In all, the teams each finished the day with 16 scores, one of which was a goal. Yet Mayo prevailed by three points.

It was a glimpse into football's future. The day the FRC decided to give double the reward for a slightly more difficult effort, the mid-range shot was doomed. Mayo appear to have figured that bit out slightly before the rest.

Don't let their image as footballing mavericks fool you. The romanticism of being viewed as everyone's second-favourite team can blind the viewer to the science. These All-Ireland champions know exactly what they're doing.

"It's all about the data," Ryan O'Donoghue declared this week as he picked up his PWC GAA/GPA Player of the Month award for July.

"We have dived into the numbers, that's the way the game is going, and we know that if you take 10 two-point shots and get your scoring rate up to 70% or so, as we would be looking for, that's far better than doing the same with one-point attempts.

"We're nearly at the stage where one-pointers from a little bit inside the arc are a waste of time."

Gaelic football has followed in the footsteps of basketball which first introduced a three-point line in the short-lived American Basketball Association in the 1970s, before the game's main league, the National Basketball Association, adopted it as the 1980s approached.

It was many years before the slightly longer and far more lucrative shot caught on. Many teams all but refused to acknowledge its presence in the early seasons. It took the best part of 30 years for the game to realise what it had on its hands - namely a slightly harder shot for 50% more reward.

In today's analytics-mad era, it was never going to take counties 30 years to figure out the obvious benefits of the two-point arc. In our game, the arc offers a slightly harder shot for double the reward.

To take another lesson from basketball, former Indiana Pacers guard Reggie Miller - one of the game's greatest ever shooters - was known to point out that "it's all about averages - the more you miss, the more you score".

It's a belief that Mayo seem wedded to themselves. Not only did they make slightly more point attempts than Kerry overall (approximately 30 to Kerry's 27 or so), but when Mayo decided that almost half (14) of those attempts would come from beyond the arc, they arguably drew a line in the sand for where we can expect football's attacking energies to be focused on as the two-point era settles in.

'It makes sense to focus more on the two-point shot. Every team is thinking that way now'

Of the 32 scores shared by Kerry and Mayo on All-Ireland final day, we had two goals, eight one-point frees (neither side missed one all day), five two-pointers from play and 19 single-point scores from play. Of the 19 single-point scores, the vast majority came from 30-ish yards and in with as many as five coming from the fist.

Only four points were kicked within that 30-40 yard area that not so long ago teams may have referred to as the 'Scoring Zone'. That old reliable spot (anywhere between the D and the arc) may soon be regarded as the least efficient area of the football pitch. A relatively difficult shot, often under pressure and offering 'only' the paltry reward of a single point.

Any player who takes on a shot from there, might find themselves forced to defend such a decision at the next team debrief.

As teams chase the percentage play, close-in one-pointers (ideally with the fist) and lucrative two-pointers may be all that makes sense in the new world.

Two-point shots - again, like three-pointers in basketball - also have the added consolation that even missed attempts can benefit the attacking team.

If three-point shots missed in basketball lead to longer rebounds - which are more likely to be snared by offensive players, unlike misses from neared the basket - a two-point attempt that drops short (as many did in the All-Ireland final) presents a problem for the defending goalkeeper.

There's no more dangerous ball in football than a point attempt that drops in on top of a goalkeeper who suddenly finds himself surrounded.

As Tyrone stopper Niall Morgan told us recently about playing in the number one jersey under the new rules: "As a whole, yes you need to be a good shot stopper, you need to have a good kick-out, and you need to be good in the air because of the amount of two-pointers that are dropping short."

O'Donoghue added: "It's the way the game is going, it's the way every team will go. It makes sense to focus more on the two-point shot. Every team is thinking that way now..."

O'Donoghue is young enough to have been mercifully spared the majority of the heartache that befell his county during the 'Jim Gavin' era as Dublin dominated the Sam Maguire competition for a decade.

But the Belmullet bomber is certainly old enough to have experienced his own share of letdowns in the green and red jersey.

His first two years on the panel resulted in a pair of All-Ireland final defeats. The first, a week before Christmas no less in the Covid-shortened season of 2020, saw them fall short against the aforementioned dastardly Dubs.

A year later, in 2021, O'Donoghue sent an early penalty kick wide as Mayo fell to Tyrone. The memory of that missed spot-kick haunted O'Donoghue. Until about 10 days ago.

"There wasn't a week that went by where it didn't enter my head, and I'd get angry, I'd get upset," he said.

"Why did I do that? Why this? Why that?

"I would never have admitted that until Sunday, July 26 I would have never admitted that to anyone, bar Andy [Moran], actually.

"Since Sunday, the 26th of July, I don't care what happened in 2021 now."

New Mayo manager Andy Moran delivered his county's first All-Ireland title in 75 years. The former Footballer of the Year set his stall out early. You were either inside the tent or out. No half measures.

"It was a whole commitment thing from him - were you in or were you out?" said O'Donoghue.

"He had a lot of hard conversations with a lot of lads. It was up to us then whether we bought in or not. To every single man, from one to 41, they bought in, whether it was moving home from Dublin, changing jobs, the list goes on.

"So yeah, there was a ruthless streak there and some boys missed out but everything he did now was right. If the All-Ireland final hadn’t gone so well, maybe people are saying he didn’t do it right, but everything he’s done seems to have worked."

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