Tony Griffin on David Clifford: 'Everyone says he's the complete player. He knows he's not'

The All Star hurler is a key part of Jack O'Connor's backroom team -- for one more year, at least.

Former Clare hurler Tony Griffin attends the launch of TG4's award-winning Laochra Gael series at the Light House Cinema in Dublin as the Gaelic sport biography series returns for another season. Picture: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

What exactly does Tony Griffin do with the Kerry footballers?

It's a long answer and even the former Clare hurler isn't too fond of his Performance Coach title which suggests clearly defined parameters.

"After the 2022 All-Ireland I sat down and I wrote out what I actually did that year and it was three foolscap pages," smiled Griffin. "Because you work with management, you work with players and then you work with the background. Like, in the All-Ireland final against Galway that year, Jack turned around to me and said, 'Speak to the lads before they go out'. I'm like, in my own head, 'In 15 seconds I'm going to have to say something that sends these guys back out!'"

The Jack, of course, is Jack O'Connor who brought the former All-Star into the Kerry setup when he took over for 2022. They'd previously worked together in Kildare.

What's certain for Griffin is this season with Kerry will be his last. There are various reasons for that, chiefly that he and his young family live in Kildare.

"In 2022, the commute from where we live in Kildare was just huge so we moved down to Ballyferriter in February and we stayed down until after the All-Ireland," he said. "That in itself was a huge education because you hear it said, 'Football is a religion in Kerry' - well not until you live down there do you realise it.

"People come up to you in ALDI when you're only in the (Kerry) backroom, and I'm in the back of the backroom, and they tell you what they think of things and you've only moved to the parish! It's a different world down there."

Griffin also feels that three years is enough for anyone in his role. "For me and for them, I think maybe there'll be a freshness needed," he explained.

He has other interests too, like writing a novel which he plans to publish. In truth, the Kerry gig happened 'by accident' and took his life in a novel direction.

It's been a fascinating life so far and, unsurprisingly, TG4 have decided to give the 42-year-old the Laochra Gael treatment. Episode 4 of the 22nd Laochra Gael series will feature the Ballyea man and will be aired on Thursday, February 15.

It will chronicle his time with Clare, a portion of which coincided with his time studying in Canada. He looks back now on all those '18-hour round trips' and wonders how he pulled it off.

Then there was the charity cycle ride across Canada in 2007, raising over €1m for cancer research.

"It was 7,000 kms, 150kms a day for 51 days straight," he recalled. "Your body literally changes shape. Mine changed shape significantly."

Because of that, a world of hamstring trouble awaited when he returned to hurling. Ultimately, he felt the epic ride 'banjaxed' him and that he never recovered his All-Star conditioning of 2006.

When he retired at 29, he felt some unfinished business at the top level. Maybe it was that, niggling away, or maybe it was just his 'obsessive kind of personality' but when he got the opportunity to work with Kerry's high-performing group, he jumped at the chance.

"I joke with the lads, when I first went in I said to them, 'I've been waiting for ye all my life, what took ye so long?!' Because every one of them wants to learn. In that first year when we won the All-Ireland, they were so hungry to learn about themselves."

That's mostly what it is about too, exploring themselves and trying to become happier humans. They're generally happier footballers as a result.

"In terms of the sessions with the players, we really just stripped it back to the humanity of the thing. It's, 'Okay, you're David Clifford but what does it feel like to watch your Mam dying?' or for someone else, 'What does it feel like to watch your best friend suffering from a depression that you can't help him out of?' You strip things back to that level. It takes a certain subtlety but I learned it from working with teenagers and young people for over 10 years. It may be unconventional but it works and all the research is telling us that it works. And look, intuitively, we knew it worked."

Clifford namechecked Griffin after the 2022 All-Ireland win, highlighting his influence. The admiration is reciprocated. Clifford's growth mindset and quest for perfection greatly excites Griffin.

"Everyone says he's the complete player. He knows he's not. And he knows his 'complete' is different to most other people's complete. But that's what he's after. It's Michael Jordan-esque. It's, 'How can I perform better?' He's an exceptional person."