Christy O'Connor: Cliffords' class shines through on emotional day

The brothers carried themselves with typical grace at the Gaelic Grounds.

LEADING FROM THE FRONT: Kerry's David Clifford leads his team during the parade. Pic: INPHO/Bryan Keane

Clifford class beams through on such an emotional afternoon 

Just as the PA speaker began announcing a minute’s silence in the Gaelic Grounds on Sunday, David Clifford was offering his final words to his team-mates in the huddle. After Clifford finished speaking, he clapped his hands before he and his brother strolled with their team-mates to gather along the 45-metre line to stand together in memory of their late mother Ellen.

Over the following 70 plus minutes, the Clifford brothers showed the immense strength of their character, which revealed itself in the most thunderous way possible in the 32nd minute. As Paudie was in possession just inside the 45-metre line, he looked up before gesturing to his brother that the pass, and play they practised together so often, was on.

Paudie delayed the action, David moved forward before checking back his run and his brother floated the ball to perfection over the head of Cillian Brennan and into David’s grasp before goalkeeper Stephen Ryan could intercept the pass.

There was no reaction from David as the ball hit the net. Paudie just shook his fist before Tom O’Sullivan patted him on the head. They left the shouting and outpouring of emotion to everyone else. 

“Ellen would have been proud of that one,” said Tim Moynihan in his Radio Kerry commentary from high up in the Mackey Stand. “We’re all proud of it.” The Clifford’s gave everything they had. From a combined 39 plays (David 16, Paudie 23), the brothers notched 3-2 from play while they had direct assists for 1-3, as well as having indirect assist involvement in five more points. That total could have been even higher; David had a goal disallowed after the referee had already blown for him being fouled; Paudie created a goal chance for Gavin White that was ruled out for a square ball.

They both kept going all afternoon, consistently demanding more from themselves and those around them. In the 66th minute, David was barking instructions to his team-mates on their set-up on a Clare kickout before tracking Jamie Malone back as far as the opposite 20-metre line.

At the final whistle, there was no emotion from both players. Referee Jerome Henry spoke to David before handing him the match ball. Colm Collins offered his condolences before Mike Quirke escorted David to the front of the stand.

Paudie joined him there shortly afterwards but when David motioned about the two of them going up together to collect the cup, Paudie shook his head before heading back into the Kerry throng. While he was out there, he embraced Jack O’Connor, who also pointed towards the podium. Again, Paudie shook his head.

After David raised the cup, no words were said. Nothing needed to be said. The sustained applause from the crowd, from both sets of supporters, said it all. As David was escorted to the dressingroom alone, Paudie eventually caught up with him just before they reached the tunnel, putting his arm around his big brother.

On an extremely difficult day, the Cliffords handled it with the grace and class that their family, and the Kerry footballing family, couldn’t have been more prouder of. That elegance, dignity and majesty on the pitch, and in the immediate aftermath of another Munster title, was the most fitting tribute the Clifford brothers could have possibly given to their late mother.

Cork muscle in on Tipp’s goalscoring territory 

When Liam Cahill was interviewed on GAAGo after Saturday night’s game, he said that the excitement of the match was electrified by the huge volume of goals. Cahill was downbeat after only drawing a match Tipp were in a commanding position to win late on but Cahill was also clearly disappointed that his side were out-goaled in a goal-fest.

Anyone who would have predicted a match with six goals beforehand would have fancied Tipp to get the majority of them, especially with their lust for green flags, having scored five against Clare, and with Cork having only created one goal chance against Waterford. Yet Cork could have had two goals in the opening minutes before Declan Dalton raised Cork’s first green flag in the fifth minute.

Cork’s four goals was the first time they had actually breached the three-goal barrier in a championship match since they routed Laois with ten goals in the 2011. However, in the intervening 12 seasons, Cork had only scored three goals on six more occasions, never surpassing four in that time. And that had only happened once in the Munster championship - in last year’s match against Tipperary when Cork hit 3-30 against a Tipp side on its knees.

Goals are no longer as common in the modern game, which made Saturday night’s match such an outlier, especially in Munster. On the other hand, the opening two rounds of this Munster campaign have already proven to be an outlier with Tipp and Cork having already breached the four goal-barrier.

Prior to this year (2008-2022), there had only been 19 occasions when a team scored three goals or more in those 15 seasons of the Munster championship. However, that three-goal barrier had been breached just five times, with only Tipperary managing to do so on those five occasions.

Tipp’s opening day-goal blitz against Clare was the first time a team had scored more than three goals in a Munster championship match since Tipp hit Waterford for 5 in the 2016 Munster final. Prior to that game, Tipp had also scored more than three goals against Limerick in 2015 (4), against Clare (4) and Waterford (7) in 2011, and against Waterford (4) in 2009.

It was easy to understand Cahill’s frustration. It rarely happens but when a team scores four goals in a Munster championship match, it’s normally Tipp who do so.

Wexford’s shooting woes, Burke’s metronomic accuracy 

In modern elite GAA, most of the main metrics are measured by efficiency, in both hurling and football, but there is a more nuanced relationship to shooting, and wides, in hurling than in football, clearly because there is the capacity to get off far more shots.

Good decision-making and shot selection governs that process but there is still an ingrained statistical value in being the team that takes the most shots. If a team is well set up on defending puckouts, that mindset of wanting to get off more shots again – from all over the pitch – is an easier selling point through an attitude of: ‘We may be giving the ball away with wayward shooting but we’ll get it straight back anyway off the opposition puckout.’ The team that shoots most usually wins, but that won’t happen if the accuracy levels of the team with the most shots is way off against the opposition, which is exactly how Saturday evening’s crucial Dublin-Wexford match played out.

Wexford had a colossal 19 more shots than Dublin (50-31) but their conversion rate was a miserly 46% compared to Dublin’s impressive 74%. Wexford’s conversion rate was only 45% in the first half and they never arrested that malaise.

Wexford were edgy from the first ball, when failing to convert any of their first four shots, which was a reflection of just how much was at stake, for both teams. Despite Dublin’s grip on possession in the first half, Wexford had seven more shots in that period, largely because Dublin turned over so much of that possession from long aimless ball into their full-forward line from too far back the pitch.

Yet despite those turnovers, Dublin’s shooting efficiency was always high, especially the imperious Donal Burke. His 0-13 haul took his tally in this championship to 2-31 in three games but his composure late on was the difference between the sides.

In the end though, Dublin’s greater overall accuracy trumped everything Wexford did.