Clifford helps set up Kerry for historic four in a row

Somewhere, high up or low down in the Croke Park stands yesterday, scouts with Australian accents sat with their eyes trained on David Clifford.

The young Fossa man is the most talked about teenager in Kerry football for years and, again, he found delivering on that expectancy to be a matter of mere course.

He finished the day with 1-10 (1-7 from play), set up Kerry’s second goal for Jack Griffin, as well as a number of points for his peers, and had two more goal chances himself.

Standing six-foot-two, and weighing in at well over 13 stone, he moves with the balance of a ballerina and the stealth of an assassin, a mixture that left Cavan utterly confounded.

“Look, he’s an outstanding footballer. You’d see clips of him, but when you actually see him up close and in action he’s nearly impossible to mark,” said Cavan manager John Brady. “We couldn’t do it today, obviously.”

Shackling the Kerry captain will be the problem of Dublin or Derry on September 17 when the county bids for a fourth consecutive All-Ireland win at the grade, something that has never been done.

They’ve already made a little piece of history by simply making it to the decider as no county has previously made it to four straight finals.

The bigger picture is whether Kerry can hold onto a player who looks to have the potential to lead their frontline for the next decade or so.

AFL clubs have consistently frustrated Kerry by swooping in for their best young talents and social media was alive yesterday with talk of Clifford’s future.

Former Dublin footballer Mossy Quinn, with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, tweeted: “Watching David Clifford so far here in Croke Park just reaffirms my hope he has a long and successful Aussie Rules career.”

Clifford, a goalscorer in last year’s final win over Galway, took the man-of-the-match award and admitted afterwards it would be particularly sweet to win four-in-a-row.

“It would be massive,” he said. “For this group of players, it’s trying for two-in-a-row for some of us and maybe a first for some fellas. That’s the only way we’re thinking, but a four-in-a-row would obviously be massive for the people of Kerry.”

Kerry manager Peter Keane was loathe to put his star man on too much of a pedestal, despite leading the destruction of the Ulster finalists.

“David played well, but look, this is a team game,” said Keane. “You look at the guy above in front of the square getting the scores, but the defence and the guys out the field have to do the work to get the ball up to him, but, yeah, he played very well, as did a good share of other guys on the day.”

Clifford, Michael Potts, Diarmuid O’Connor and attacker Brian Friel, who scored four points, started last year’s final. Keane felt their experience of the venue was helpful.

“That really is not a factor earlier in the Munster championship or even in the quarter-final, but I think it was a factor today, that some of our players had been around here before with the Sem and with us too as minors,” said Keane.

The All-Ireland winning minor boss dismissed the four-in-a-row angle as being anything particularly significant for his players.

“I think there’s a lot of talk about how ever many games they’ve won or how ever many titles we’re going for, that’s all irrelevant, because you have young fellas out there this year who are minors and they have no minor medal,” said Keane.

“That’s all they want, one minor medal. They’re not concerned about what some fella did three or four years ago, when they were only 13 or 14 years of age. They’re only worried about now and that’s the key thing for all those young lads.”

Clifford began to pull the strings early on and Kerryoutscored Cavan by 0-9 to 0-1 toopened up a 0-10 to 0-3 lead approaching the interval.

Midfielders Barry Mahony and Diarmuid O’Connor were also on the mark with points.

Cavan were thrown a lifeline, when Patrick Lynch’s long ball pin-balled around the Kerry defence and Oisin Pierson bundled a 27th minute goal.

The Cavan top scorer added a point and Kerry suddenly led by just 0-11 to 1-4 at the break.

Cavan needed a strong third quarter, but didn’t score again until the 46th minute, by which stage they’d fallen 13 points behind.

Clifford nailed a 35th- minute goal when he outfielded Danny Cusack and blasted to the net, having gone close on two previous occasions.

Friel and Fiachra Clifford also pointed, as Kerry moved 1-17 to 1-4 ahead.

Cavan refused to throw in the towel and responded with an unexpected 1-5, including a goal from James Smith.

However, Kerry never looked truly in danger of losing and finished with a 1-4 scoring siege to leave a dozen points between the teams.

Scorers for Kerry: D. Clifford (1-10, 2 ‘45, 1 free); J. Griffin (1-1); B. Friel (0-4); F. Clifford (0-2); D. O’Connor, B. Mahony, Donnchadh O’Sullivan, Donal O’Sullivan, E. Horan (0-1 each).

Scorers for Cavan: O. Pierson (1-5, 2 frees); J. Smith (1-2); C. Madden, R. Patterson, P. Rogers (0-1 each).

Kerry: D. Uosis; N. Donohue, C. O’Donoghue, S. O’Leary; P. Warren, M. Potts, C. Gammell; B. Mahony, D. O’Connor; A. Donoghue, B. Friel, F. Clifford; D. Clifford, Donnchadh O’Sullivan, Donal O’Sullivan.

Subs: J. Griffin for Donnchadh O’Sullivan (43); E. Horan for Warren (47); C. Ferriter for Donal O’Sullivan (51); C. O’Reilly for F. Clifford (58); M. O’Leary for Mahony (61); R. O’Neill for Gammell (68).

Cavan: G. O’Rourke; J. Cooke, E. Fortune, C. Timoney; R. Coyle, P. Nulty, D. Cusack; R. Patterson, O. Kiernan; R. Curran, C. Madden, P. Rogers; J. Smith, O. Pierson, P. Lynch.

Subs: S. Keogan for Kiernan (h/t); K. Brady for Coyle (37); N. McCabe for Lynch (45); T. Reilly for Curran (51); P. Meade for Patterson (60); R. Madden for Timoney (68).

Referee: L. Devenney (Mayo).