What actually is a turnover?

Turnovers are quite possibly the most divisive KPI's I have ever come across in Gaelic Games. I've talked with countless coaches, players and analysts to try and establish what constitutes a turnover. In today's blog post I hope to try and clearly define what is a turnover and create an extensive list of how they can occur.

Defining a Turnover?

When I conduct analysis I consider a turnover simply a change in possession by any means. Some coaches discount interceptions classing them as errors rather than turnovers. I often tag unforced interceptions as errors in addition to turnovers but never the less they cause a change of possession and thus that is how they are reflected in my analysis. have found that encompassing all changes in possession the most accurate reflection and ensures your possession statistics helping teams identify how they are winning and losing possession and thus how they can adjust their game plan to maximize their strengths.

Tackle

The traditional and most obvious way to take or give the ball away. The tackle is a skill we teach from a young age and avoiding it is a coaching principle seen throughout the GAA. The tackle involves physically removing the ball from the opponent's possession and taking control of it. There are multiple techniques used and can be identified when conducting live and post-game analysis. If we are losing the ball in the tackle it may indicate that we need to move the ball quicker and introduce more support runners and encourage our players to take on less contact in play.

Interception

When intercepting the ball in play we are preventing it from reaching its' desired destination or target. When defending we can intercept any form of pass to take control of the ball and win back possession. Interceptions can be forced by a defender springing in front of a forward, or reading the game and getting to a ball before its intended target. They can also be unforced where the passer is not under pressure and poorly executes their pass. Although this can be categorized as an error it still causes a change in possession and thus would be classed as a turnover event. If our kick passing is being intercepted we may need to consider if we are better off running the ball and focus on a short passing game and on the flip side if our hand passing is causing dispossessions we may have to consider being more direct with our play and utilise more kick passing.

Free Kick

Teams can concede possession by committing a foul. They may over-carry the ball, or commit a charging offence. All of these 'Offensive Fouls' to borrow a term for other sports return the ball to the opposition and thus turnover the possession. These offensive fouls tend to occur when running with the ball. If these numbers are notably high we may consider moving the ball more often with passing rather than carrying the ball on longer runs and trying to avoid contact which may slow our progress and force our players into over carrying.

Sideline Ball

We can use the sideline as an extra defender. By forcing the opponent out of space and forcing them over the end line either by shepherding them or by making contact with a tackle we can retake possession. The sideline can also be used as a form of interception by forcing the opposition into mistakes that cause their passes to be misplaced and turned over to the other team in the form of a sideline ball. Many teams like to use the full with of the pitch when attacking so defenders should be aware of the value of putting passes going wide or players running the wings under pressure.

Handling / Skill Error

Often players may bounce the ball in a divot, miscue a solo or something similar which leads to them losing control and ultimately possession of the ball. This mistake by the player can be forced by pressure or be categorized as an unforced error and just a genuine mistake.

Pass resulting in a kick out

There oftentimes in a game when a team plays a deep ball into the full-forward line and the result is a kick out. I have seen this event classed as a wide which in my opinion is a misleading statistic. The attempted pass should be reflected as one and not as a shot. Therefore similar to the sideline we can class this as giving possession back to the opposition in the form of a restart. This statistic is useful to use when examining how well we are engaging our full-forward and the accuracy of our passing (general kick passing) to the full forwards.

Shot Short

A shot can drop short, or hit the post and fall into anybody's hands. Like in basketball the miss creates the opportunity for an offensive or defensive rebound. If the defence picks it up then our play has cost us possession. One could additionally count a forward winning a ball that dropped short as a new possession as the last one came to the end with the previous shot. This will indicate the accuracy of or forward's shooting an is a number we will always desire to have as low as possible. The rebounds won and lost are also a way of examining how our forward line are capable of competing for 50/50 or 70/30 balls while testing how alert they are to the potential rebounds.

It is important to understand the different types of turnovers because each form of turnover indicates something different about the defending and the attacking team. By understanding what causes each type of turnover we have a greater understanding of what is positively and negatively impacting our possession statistics. Some turnovers will be more important for us to review based on our style of play, for example, why would a running team be overly concerned with kicking the ball away compared to losing it in the tackle when they don't use the kick pass as very often as part of their attacks. This understanding can give us greater insights when analysing games and ultimately allow analysts and coaches to provide more relevant supports and feedback to their team.