Cruelty of Clifford’s County final fate and the fairness of football

Fossa's David Clifford dejected after the game.

A dejected Adrian Sheehan was Fossa’s final representative on the field last Sunday. His team and ticket had already made for Austin Stack Park’s tunnel. As Milltown/Castlemaine rejoiced all around him, he took a moment and took stock.

This peak was unprecedented. They’d never scaled such heights before. And having reached this sector of the mountain they were understandably crushed to come up short. The sort of pain that only comes with a narrow loss and makes you realise why we care about sport. It has to matter.

Nearby Kerry boss Jack O’Connor posed for photographs with his elated family, his son Éanna’s sharpshooting having earned him Man of the Match. Former GAA president Seán Kelly offered congratulatory handshakes all round, a sole red and black headband hanging around his neck. All politics is local.

Sheehan generously stopped to talk to media and was duly asked about David Clifford, as he always is. From this vantage he could clearly see the peaks and troughs the young star had traversed in 2023.

This weekend was emblematic. Up to the RDS for a consecutive Footballer of the Year award on Friday. Down to Tralee for a 12-point masterclass in an intermediate county final on Sunday. He was outstanding. It wasn’t enough. The game is the game.

“David is a tough character. He will dust himself down and go again. This will drive him. He will hopefully have a little break, get his focus back to Kerry.

“He will drive the club on again. He is only 24 years of age. We are operating at a level that we’ve never operated at before. You aren’t going to win everything. David will drive Kerry and drive this club forward. There will be bumps along the way. That is football.”

Three perfect words to summarise the absurdity of what we had just seen and this season. ‘That is football,’ the universal phrase that boils a thousand different elements down to one single and satisfactory outcome. The sporting fan’s ‘look it.’ A catch all term that captures it all.

David Clifford finished with 13 possessions and 12 points. Two of those 13 plays were assists. He scored five frees, he was fouled for four. He kicked four points from play on his right. He claimed and converted an absurd mark.

It was a blinding display of his elastic elusiveness by the best player in the country and in the utter madness of this match, it still did not deliver what would have been Fossa’s first intermediate title in their 53-year history.

ELATION: The Milltown/Castlemaine team celebrate with the cup.

Gaelic football is a reliable, results-dictated form of sporting chaos. Everything about this county final was a testament to that brutal reality. From early on the stand was alive with airhorns and Healy-Raes and a whole load of cross-country travellers.

This phenomenon of people making the trip from Laois, Waterford, Cavan and beyond to watch Clifford play for his club is not new. It remains phenomenal. Later that night, they will leave posts on Fossa’s Facebook page in a bid to give thanks to someone. Moved to get the message out there, to make it known to the world; we were witnesses. What a joy.

They can’t reach Clifford anywhere else, only in his realm. He isn’t on social media. Contact can only be obtained in place where he looks most at ease. Long before throw-in, he is bordered by selfie hunters as he attempts to partake in a simple walk of the pitch. Later when he leaves with his head in his hands, they still come and surround him. The blessing. The curse.

The 24-year-old, ridiculously just 24, is unreservedly sincere and respectful in every public appearance. On Friday he spoke movingly about the loss of his mother and how his two worlds collided the next day at the Munster final.

“We are just very thankful for the support our family have gotten since mom passed away.” The significance of that loss is such that it does not need saying. Life is a sphere with no sense of fairness. It is not like sport. We look there for justice. These two young men have carried themselves in such an admirable way that any level-headed neutral was willing them on in every single display since.

On Sunday Paudie roared into life in the early exchanges, as his side were forced to run the ball against a gale. That determination and those driving runs have become a calling card. Together their power and precision can almost distract from the consistent source that fuels it all: The Cliffords are pure competitive animals. They simply want to win and are willing to do what it takes to make it happen.

Look at how Paudie thunders down the centre channel and is felled by two scrambling defenders. Here comes David immediately, grabbing the ball and making for the penalty spot. Wait and watch how they react when the decision is overturned.

David delicately pleas for one more reversal. Paudie prowls menacingly outside the square. When the ball is eventually thrown up, Paudie powers past every defender, wins the breaks and rifles a shot into the bottom corner. His indignation is immediate when he realises the referee had sounded his whistle just before for a free.

Throughout all eyes are on David. He obviously knows this and conducts his outfit, every gesture an expression of his in game intelligence. When to press, where to drop off, who to pass to, how to attack.

Midway through the first half Fossa are awarded a free on the left-hand sideline. Clifford is ahead of the play with a sea of defenders in front of him. Off the ball, he points to the far wing, instructing his brother to move play across the pitch.

Harry Buckley ends up with the ball in the right corner and now David is pointing across to the vacated space on the left. A dink ball goes into the opposite corner and finally the five-time All-Star can make his move and sprint on the loop, wheeling around on his favoured left, taking one hop to create the space and curling over an exceptional score.

Sheehan would tell us post-match that they had identified the runs of midfielder Cillian Burke and centre back David Roche as threats that must be stopped. We already knew that because in the first minute during Milltown/Castlemaine’s early attack, Clifford positioned himself directly in front of centre-back Roche and relentlessly pushed him back. He was willing to do it all. Roche could not pass.

The Cliffords could not have done more. That is the thing, the cruelty of this infuriating pursuit. His genius has and will win games, but it is not sustainable. In the battle of individual versus collective, more often than not the collective will triumph. Milltown/Castlemaine were the better team. Fossa, like Kerry, will learn from this heartbreaking defeat and must develop promising courtiers to complement the king.

A game of chances and collisions, of narrow calls and a healthy dose of controversy. A game with relentless swings. Fossa were behind, level, ahead, behind, level, ahead, behind. A game where a talent the likes of which we’ve never seen can fire twelve flawless shots in an hour and still be haunted by the two he missed with the clock in red. An enraging game, an enthralling game.

A game that leaves every single onlooker utterly content with a perfect afternoon’s entertainment and a game where that does not matter in the slightest for the main characters. That is football.