By John Considine
Last Sunday, Dublin footballers handed out an expected heavy beating to Longford. The final score was 4-25 to 0-10. The margin of victory has added to the discussion of the strength of the Leinster Senior Football championship (LSFC). Here are some numbers on the LSFC.
The LSFC has a single game knockout structure (excepts for ties that end level and are replayed). In this competition there are n-1 games played. In the case of the LSFC, 11 teams compete giving 10 games. All but the winning team loses one game each year.
Dublin have won 10 of the 15 titles on offer in the 21st century (including 9 of the last 10). Meath have won two. The other three were shared between Kildare, Laois and Westmeath.
Only four teams have won more games than they have lost (Dublin, Meath, Kildare, and Laois).
Dublin have played more games than any other team in the LSFC. In addition, Dublin have won almost 25% of the games that have been played in the LFSC. As the pie chart below shows, Dublin have won more games than Louth, Offaly, Longford, Wicklow and Carlow combined.
The LSFC has a single game knockout structure (excepts for ties that end level and are replayed). In this competition there are n-1 games played. In the case of the LSFC, 11 teams compete giving 10 games. All but the winning team loses one game each year.
Dublin have won 10 of the 15 titles on offer in the 21st century (including 9 of the last 10). Meath have won two. The other three were shared between Kildare, Laois and Westmeath.
Only four teams have won more games than they have lost (Dublin, Meath, Kildare, and Laois).
Dublin have played more games than any other team in the LSFC. In addition, Dublin have won almost 25% of the games that have been played in the LFSC. As the pie chart below shows, Dublin have won more games than Louth, Offaly, Longford, Wicklow and Carlow combined.
The 27-point margin between Dublin and Longford is at the upper end of the points difference between teams over the last 15 years. The figure below presents the distributions of games that finished in margins of various sizes. With the exception of two beatings that Meath handed out to Carlow, the games with the largest margins and ones where Dublin defeated their rivals.
Adam Smith might point out that there are twelve counties in Leinster. Kilkenny is the county that does not compete in the LSFC. Smith might suggest that Kilkenny are engaged in the specialisation and division of labour by not playing senior football. Instead, Kilkenny focus on hurling. Since 2000 they have won 12 of the 15 Leinster Senior Hurling titles. He could also point to the province of Munster where the most successful football county tends not to compete in the hurling championship. Unfortunately, this is not a solution for Longford as they do not compete in the LSHC.
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