David Clifford loves a score celebration. Depending on your preference and provenance, you may not see this as necessarily a good thing. It’s bad enough you have to try and find a way to chain the streetwise Hercules without having to endure him giving it the big one to the Kerry crowd too.
But for plenty of us, the fact that he’s not a po-faced, fake-humble, get-back-and-mark-up-for-the-kickout kind of guy is undeniably a plus. This thing is meant to be fun, after all. Sport is supposed to be enjoyed. It’s right there in the name.
Clifford let loose three times during Kerry’s 2-18 to 0-20 win over Dublin and all three of them told you about the state of the game at the time. The first was after banging home his penalty rebound in the third minute, a lucky goal after a lucky penalty award. He’s never above celebrating when something falls his way through happenstance.
The second was maybe a little less edifying. It came in the 50th minute, when Kerry were starting to take hold of proceedings and Dublin were, in the way of teams who suspect it’s not their day, beginning to fall the wrong side of tight margins. Evan Comerford sent a kickout to the Hogan Stand sideline, where Lee Gannon rose to take what would have been a spectacular mark.
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But the ball came loose as Gannon fell to earth and Kerry were away. It was worked to Clifford who cut inside for his only two-point score of the day. Davy Byrne had got a brilliant block on an earlier effort but the Dublin defender couldn’t make it this time. As Clifford raised the orange flag, he roared into the Hogan Stand before turning and doing the same into Byrne’s face.
Which seemed a bit unnecessary, in all honesty. Byrne had played him clean as a whistle all day, neither pulling nor dragging, just pure, dogged defending. But the blood was clearly up in Clifford – the two-pointer put them 2-13 to 0-15 ahead, their biggest lead of the day. In the space of the previous 10 minutes, they had outscored Dublin by 1-5 to 0-1. The tide had turned. Clifford knew how badly they needed it.
Kerry remind you of O Henry’s line about how New York will be a great city if they ever finish it. Jack O’Connor has spent the whole year squeezing percentages out of players returning from various states of injury and unfitness, sending them out to play despite them not being in full cry. On paper, they look to be far and away the best team in the championship. On grass, they’re able to do just enough to get by.
They win these games in the quiet moments too. David Clifford doing the palms-down calm-it sign as Gavin White strode forward in the first half, sending him back to start again – a move that ended with Clifford putting Graham O’Sullivan away for a point a minute later.
Paudie Clifford holding up a hand of apology to Dylan Geaney for a pass not given, then clapping him on the back a couple of minutes later even though Geaney took his own score rather than squaring to him in front of goal. Kerry aren’t the best they can be but they’re connected and together.
The elder Clifford was man of the match here, partly because Dublin gave him the lanes and streets of Drumcondra in which to enjoy himself. He scored five points, picked out two Kerry players for marks and generally went around the place like he was editing a movie. A quick cut here, a light touch there – he was able to make the whole thing look exactly how he wanted by the end.
“I suppose it just depends on the defensive system,” Paudie said afterwards. “Obviously Dublin have a very good defensive system. I got a bit of freedom but then it means that David and the likes of Dylan [Geaney] don’t get the freedom. If someone pushes out on me, there’s one-on-ones inside.”
Though this was Kerry’s biggest win over Dublin since the startled earwigs day in 2009, Jack O’Connor conceded that they’d needed their fair share of luck to see it out. The penalty was iffy, the second goal was a square ball, Ross McGarry’s effort in the 58th minute was kept from crossing the line by the width of Mike Breen’s nostril hair. Shane Murphy pulled off two brilliant saves and Dublin kicked 11 wides to their four.
But the iron law of semi-finals is you get through them any way you can. As Dublin pushed on in the dying minutes, having cut the gap from five to three, whatever hope they had dissolved once David Clifford was put away. Left one-on-one with 40 metres of space ahead of him, he split the posts. Four points up, less than 60 seconds to go – Kerry were in the final.
And so Clifford wheeled away, screaming into the Cusack this time and flipping the top good and proper off a green and gold bottle of fizz in the stands. His tally of 1-5 for the day brought him within three points of Colm Cooper in championship scores – he will surely pass the Gooch in the final and only have Cillian O’Connor above him in the all-time list. All this and he’s still only 27.
The celebration police will have to put up with him a while longer yet.
