In their Kerry dreams, this is who they always hoped David Clifford would be. In his mid-teens, as a minor, when he came through to senior all coltish limbs and give-it-to-me attitude. This was who they sent away for. Eight points in an All-Ireland final. One kick missed from nine taken. The one sure route to the scoreboard in a first half that saw the rest of the Kerry players came out in hives when faced with a shot at goal.
He didn’t demolish Seán Kelly or anything like it. He didn’t score from play after the 42nd minute. As the game went feral and took on a you-score-we-score flavour midway through the second half, Clifford was in fact fairly peripheral. But when it came down to it, when Galway had just drawn level and the next score was everything, he was who they wanted on the go-ahead free.
“I missed a few frees at the start in the Cork game in 2020,” he said afterwards. “And I did a lot of work with Maurice Fitz last year on it, trying to get into the right head space and not be too causal standing over it. So I was quite confident and went back to my routine and thankfully it went over.”
In these moments, when Croke Park is thumping and the boos are raining down and the Galway fans are screaming injustice at the softness of the free, the weight of everything is an immutable fact. A tricky free, a nasty wind, down in the swirliest, curliest corner of the ground. Linesman Barry Cassidy nabbed him for stealing steps and brought him back closer to the sideline.
There’s no shrugging off a moment like that — you either kick it or you don’t. You either win the All-Ireland Kerry have been waiting on since he was doing his Junior Cert or you give Galway another life, right when they have all the momentum. He hooked it in, the ball looping around the post like a rainbow. He is who they were waiting on.
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“It’s strange,” he said afterwards. “In January and February every year we felt like we were going to go and win the All-Ireland. I’d say this year was probably the first year that we didn’t mention winning the All-Ireland — until today, really.
“I think that was important for us. Maybe we were building it up too much in other years, I don’t know. As I say, it’s easy to say you’re going to win it in January and February. Then you actually have to go and do it. It’s class.
“It feels brilliant. We just couldn’t get a handle on them, we struggled to shake them off. It’s a testament to them, McDaid and Walsh were absolutely outstanding. When we went three or four up in added time, we started to maybe feel like we were over the line. It’s unbelievable in fairness.”
For the longest time, this didn’t go to plan for Kerry. Clifford kept them buoyant in a first half when their shooting weighed them down like concrete clogs. He took two monumental marks in traffic around the Galway D, judging their flight path to perfection while surrounded by Galway defenders. He kicked a lovely score on the run as well — the only time he managed to separate himself from Kelly in a killer position.
But Galway led because nobody else in the Kerry attack was able to fix their radar. Stephen O’Brien scored the only other point from play in that first half. Diarmuid O’Connor, Paul Geaney and O’Brien all kicked wides. Clifford kicked one two but even the Mona Lisa isn’t perfect. (No eyelashes, since you ask.) It added up to a one-point deficit and the only time all year Jack O’Connor has lost is temper at the break.
“It was general disappointment at half-time,” Clifford said. “Not about anything we brought — we just weren’t ourselves. We didn’t nail our shots. We didn’t bring any sense of want or need out there. There was no intensity from us. So I think it was disappointment really because we knew there was so much more in us. You have those days some times but thankfully it came right for us.
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“I was just saying it to a few lads there, it felt like they had really analysed us very well individually. In the game, a few things happened that you were going, ‘Jesus, that usually works for me.’ So no, fair play to them — they had massive analysis done and they delivered on their game plan. But I suppose we had an idea that if we could just enjoy the battle for 55 minute, things would open up and we’d kick on from there. Thankfully that’s how it went.”
He’s a made man now. Most likely Footballer of the Year. More crucially, an All-Ireland winner. The first one in the bag, now it’s a question of how many he can rack up.
“You see so many sportspeople who have never won whatever — Premier Leagues, All-Irelands, whatever. There’s absolutely nothing inevitable about it. It’s tough to take the losses each year but it makes this so much sweeter.
“There definitely a realisation that this isn’t the end of us by any means. It’s really time to go now. We are just getting started.”
The rest of the sport just felt their shirt collar tighten.
Read all the news, analysis and comment on Kerry’s win, here.
