David Clifford needs no introduction at this stage. At just 23 years of age, he has just topped off his incredible list of personal accolades (which include a Young Footballer of the Year gong and three All-Stars) with an All-Ireland medal.
It has been a longer road to the top table for older brother, Paudie. At two years David’s elder, the playmaker endured a frustrating wait for a call-up to the Kingdom squad before he burst on the scene to great effect in 2021, joining his more exalted sibling on the All Star honours list by the year’s end.
Now, as Jack O’Connor's side have ended an eight-year wait to lift Sam Maguire once more, much of the team's success came thanks to the Fossa brothers.
READ MORE: Kerry crowned All-Ireland champions for a 38th time after holding off Galway
For a small club on the outskirts of Killarney, to say that they are proud of the development of the Cliffords is an understatement. But, while people are now used to seeing them in the green and gold jersey, how did they climb to the summit in such a football-obsessed county? And were they always destined to follow this path?
Willie Buckley has been a prominent underage coach with Fossa for many, many years. Working with the brothers from under-12 level upwards, he has had a birds-eye view of their progression from promising youngsters to adult stalwarts. Even back then, he remembers, David was ahead of his peers.
“For me initially, I came in as an under-12 trainer for Paudie’s team, and David would have been 10 at the time, and was part of that under-12 side. He was always playing two years up, and that went from the very start. Even though he was two years younger than Paudie, they played together from an early age,” he said. “David was younger, but was always playing and starting on those teams, as a left-corner-forward.
“He was always a good finisher, he was always on the tail end of an attack, and would always be the fella that would loop around from a corner-forward position, take the ball, and take the scores.
“Even from a young age, if you were three points down, you could give David the nod, and say ‘you know what, we need a goal here’, and whenever we needed scores, he would be able to go and get them.”
A couple of years down the line, former Kerry senior, and current under-20 selector, Sean O’Sullivan, was cutting his teeth on the sideline with the Kerry South under-14s. The Cromane man had heard little murmurings of a potential wonder kid out in Fossa and, once he first saw the younger brother in action, he couldn’t but be impressed.
“When you hear about a young fella, it’s all word of mouth really until you see it for yourself in the flesh. But I went to see him and, straightaway, I was very impressed.
“He was playing in the full-forward line and he was head and shoulders above everyone on the field.
“When I say that, it’s from a footballing point of view, and physically, he was very strong for his age,” said O’Sullivan.
“Obviously then, when I was picking my Kerry South under-14 panel, he was on it. He came in, and I worked with that group for three years, they were a fantastic group, but David was just a joy to work with to be honest with you.
“He was a very committed and focused young man, even at that early age, and was always working on his skills, always looking to improve.
“In those three years that I had him, at 14, 15 and 16, we played a tournament every July against the other counties in Munster, and he was just a joy to watch on the field.
“He was a real leader in our team, and you just knew that he was going to be a star of the future.”
Natural talent is one thing. Many players, in many sports, are born with the raw ingredients to get to the summit in their chosen arena. Listening to Buckley and O’Sullivan, however, it’s clear that what set David, and Paudie, apart from the majority of their contemporaries was their leadership qualities, and their fanatical drive to reach for the stars.
“The two of them were probably very similar in that regard (leadership). They were different types of players, but determined in the same way. For sure, that came from their parents, Dermot and Ellen.
“They’re a big GAA family, and they were always going to games from early on. They had huge, huge interest in Gaelic football, his mother as much as his father,” added Buckley.
“They were very easy to coach, very driven themselves from a young age, and in the training sessions, they were good to listen, good to train, good to do what you wanted them to do.
“At the same time, they were always leaders on the field. If young fellas were messing around in training, Paudie or David would check them and say ‘come on lads, we need to knuckle down here and do this right.’”
In three seasons of working with the former Young Footballer-of-the-Year in those Kerry underage development squads, O’Sullivan has fond memories of a particular Saturday morning session when several Kingdom seniors of the time were invited in to pass on a few tips to the young prospects. James O’Donoghue spoke to the inside forwards.
“All the players were absolutely zoned in on what James was teaching them, but you could really see in David that he was really soaking everything up. I can even remember to this day, we walked off the pitch after, and James called me over and said ‘My God, that young Clifford fella is doing things at this age that you’d be surprised to see a minor or an under-21 player doing.’
“David was like a sponge really. He was always looking for little bits and pieces where you could improve.
“He was a cut above the rest for his age, and once he focused in on Gaelic football, and that he wanted to play for Kerry at all levels, there was no turning back, and I think that’s what separates him from the rest,” he added.
While Paudie put an awful lot of time into strengthening his physique, improving his stamina, and bolstering his range of passing to become the dynamic attacking engine that was showcased to all and sundry on a national stage last year, David also understood that he could get better too. He might have been gifted with a stunning skill-set, but there were areas that needed refinement. “He would have been very left-sided, so we really worked with him in terms of his right foot.
“He was very quick off the mark, but we worked an awful lot as well, like we did with all the forwards, on creating space for himself, and being able to make different types of runs during a game, so he could free himself up,” stressed O’Sullivan.
“We knew that, once we could get David one-on-one, or in space anywhere in the scoring zone, it was going to be a score.
“He was going to score himself, whether that be a goal or a point, or he was going to create something. We worked an awful lot on that.
“What he also worked on as well, with our strength and conditioning team, was his running style.
“He was so tall that we felt that when he was running, I won’t say he was kind of bending down, but he wasn’t getting the maximum out of his running gait. I remember him working very, very hard, even in the off-season, with strength and conditioning coaches, to really work on his running style, so that he could basically get more speed into his game.
“Even though he was very quick for a big guy, we felt that he could definitely get quicker if he just made slight adjustments to his running style, which again he bought into 100 per cent, and you can see the athlete that he has turned into now.
“He’s just phenomenal, he’s got that burst of pace over the first few yards that, for an inside forward, is just crucial, because he can get away from his man.”
As for what today's achievement means for those who have helped the brothers into the players they are? Willie Buckley had the last word on that while speaking back in March.
“They would be fairly similar, very driven and really down-to-earth nice fellas, there’s nothing blown up about them or anything like that.
“They come into the club, and they’re just part of the set-up, they’re the same as everybody else.
“Again, that comes from their parents. They are just completely immersed in football, and immersed in the club.
“That elusive All-Ireland senior medal . . . You would be hoping, from a Kerry point of view, that Kerry can get over the line at some stage.
“It would be fantastic for this club, and for the two players themselves, but equally for Kerry football. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.”
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