It's approaching five years now since David Clifford ran amok with 4-4 for the Kerry minors in the 2017 All-Ireland final. The Fossa wizard returned to Croke Park last month for the National League final and helped himself to 1-6 at Mayo's, or more precisely, Pádraig O'Hora's expense.
On both occasions, it was a straight head-to-head between perhaps the forward of his generation and a single defender. And there was only going to be one outcome.
Cork didn't exactly reinvent the wheel last weekend but their decision to double-mark Clifford in their Munster semi-final tie at Páirc Uí Rinn did limit him to just a solitary point overall from play. With 50 minutes on the clock and just a point between the teams, we wondered if it may even be a masterstroke.
The floodgates eventually opened and Kerry won at their ease but Cork may just have presented the template for dealing with the boy wonder.
“Yeah, possibly that is something we have probably started to come across and will continue to come across so it is about finding solutions to it,” said Clifford. “It is about having as many scoring threats as we have and they can’t double mark everyone, if you know what I mean. So yeah, it is obviously tricky and that brings its challenges but trying to find ways around it is enjoyable too.
“I don’t think it particularly matters whether any individual does well or gets on loads of ball or whatever, once we get over the line and once we hit the performance markers that we have laid out.
“Getting a performance is probably more important than an individual performance for me anyway.”
In Clifford's defence, maybe the five-week delay between Kerry's league final defeat of Mayo and the Munster championship opener with Cork blunted his keen edge. There'll be another long gap too if they win the Munster final on May 28th because their All-Ireland quarter-final tie wouldn't be for another four weeks. So much for a condensed season.
“I would not be getting into the structure stuff too much, now,” said Clifford. “The league is good, we had plenty of games but then it’s tight on the fellas who are picking up injuries and stuff like that, so there probably is a happy medium. That two- or three-week gap is probably optimum.”
A break is no harm for Clifford either. He was busy throughout the spring months, helping the University of Limerick to reach the Sigerson Cup final. He completed a master's degree at the college and aims to become a teacher.
“I just finished the teaching master’s last week actually so I’m qualified to teach, pending results, in September so hopefully that goes well,” he said.
By September and his first gig, he may finally be an All-Ireland senior medallist.
“I suppose that’s something . . . not to be cliched like, but we are genuinely just trying to focus on one game at a time and just trying to break it all down to that level,” he said. “I don’t think anybody has spoken or thought of anything further down the line. We’re just trying to take one game at a time and it’s the Munster final now we’re focusing on.”
Last year's championship ended for Clifford and Kerry in defeat to Tyrone in an All-Ireland semi-final. The following night, Clifford's first child, Ogie, was born. It has resulted in a shifting of perspective.
“Ogie doesn’t tend to be too worried about whether we’ve won or not,” smiled Clifford. “Obviously look, it’s a change but it’s a massively enjoyable change. My outlook on football has probably changed.
“It feels like it’s everything and we put everything we have into it but look, I think health and family and things like that do probably take more priority. Overall, it’s massively enjoyable, there’s great fun attached to it.”
Clifford is certainly living his best life, hooking up with brother and fellow All-Star Paudie in the Kerry attack. For several years there, it looked like Paudie may have missed the boat as he initially made his name with the Kerry junior team.
“Yeah, probably, like he could have been in a year or two earlier but I don’t think he himself was taking it too seriously,” said David. “He played a lot of soccer and stuff, he was doing other things, but as soon as he put his head down and decided he wanted to play for Kerry . . . it kind of all stemmed from the Sigerson and then he played a year at junior with Kerry. Could he have been in one year earlier? Possibly, yeah.
“Probably S&C wise he put a lot more into it. And then you could see the performances he was putting in at club level were just massive, it was a big improvement.”
– David Clifford was speaking at the launch of SuperValu’s #CommunityIncludesEveryone campaign.
