It seems odd to think that, while at an age where one would find themselves gazing out a classroom window, wistfully daydreaming about ripping the net in Croke Park, Kerry minor David Clifford has already achieved it three times in a year.
Still aged just 17, the Sem man starred for his native Kingdom on Sunday as Kerry won their third consecutive All-Ireland minor football title with a 3-7 to 0-9 victory over Galway (incredibly, Kerry hadn't won a minor All-Ireland in 20 years prior to their first on this run in 2014).
Having been held scoreless for 50-odd minutes of a pulsating if scrappy affair, David Clifford picked the ball up on the right wing, about 70 yards from goal, and put the foot on the gas. Even from such a distance, Kerry fans and even those who had watched him in the Hogan Cup final at the same venue five months previous knew what was coming. There's every chance the Galway defenders did, too.
While Clifford was compared to one Maurice Fitzgerald by his schools coach following St. Brendans' Hogan Cup final victory back in April, in which Clifford hit 2-5 during an extraordinary display, there was more than a touch of the Eoin Mulligans about his decisive solo run and finish in Sunday's victory.
David Clifford by yossarianlives5
The goal - one of the best to grace Croke Park all season - capped an extraordinary year for the six-foot-two corner forward, who won All-Ireland titles with both school and county in Croker, notching some other-worldly scores en route.
After 1-5 in the provincial decider and 0-5 in the quarter-final against Derry, Clifford hit 0-8 from play in the semi versus Kildare, producing one particularly colossal catch to set up David Shaw for Kerry's opener. It was surely a sign of things to come.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI1nLSnlXo8
Born in 1999, Clifford is minor again next year, which is bad news for the seven or eight counties who have aspirations of dethroning the new minor rulers. Of course, Clifford had entered the inter-county championship season under the weight of massive expectation, having stolen the show as The Sem ended their 24-year All-Ireland drought with a 2-13 to 2-6 drubbing of St. Pats in April.
St. Brendan's have produced players of the calibre of Gooch, Seamus Moynihan and John O'Keefe, and while it's too soon to suggest Clifford join them, the school could do worse than to leave some room next to the greats on their already-decorated wall of fame.
But his 2-5 in the Hogan Cup final could hardly have brought him more fame than the unfortunate incident which marred his Man Of The Match interview on TG4.
Like many Kerry greats before him, he's making Jones' Road his second home. It's not been a bad old start to a Croke Park-bound career for young man who still has his Leaving Cert to contend with.
