What a talent the boy is.
David Clifford isn’t a half bad footballer.
The Fossa club man has scored just the 10-58 during his minor championship run with Kerry.
Look out for this @Kerry_Official minor on Sunday! Did you know David Clifford has 4-37 in the @ElectricIreland Minor Championship so far? pic.twitter.com/gDybMg8mfg
— The GAA (@officialgaa) September 14, 2017
He’s just class and never has there quite been a minor with the same level of expectation surrounding him.
But how many lads come straight from minor to senior and make the impact expected of them? Few and far between and especially when everyone will be looking for Clifford to shoot lights out like he has for Kerry minors as they won four All-Ireland titles in a row.
The big decision now is: does Clifford play Under-20’s with Kerry and develop further at that level and make the bridge to senior that little bit better or does he go straight into next year’s league campaign with the Kingdom?
Kerry’s top forward at the moment Paul Geaney was speaking at the announcement of PwC’s sponsorship of the All-Star Awards and spoke about the transition Clifford will have to make:
“I appreciated David Clifford’s performance from what I saw, he scored 4-4 or something ridiculous and I look forward to having a look at that again,” Geaney said.
“I’d imagine that he will be training (with the seniors) straight away. Now, development is a big thing, it’s not often you have a guy coming out of minor going into seniors when you’re being marked by someone that is bigger and stronger than you and possibly as quick if not quicker than you.
“He’ll just have to use different parts of his games there but it’ll be interesting to see whether he comes straight in, the under 20’s you only play if you’re not involved in the seniors so there’s a catch 22 there on his personal development, maybe he’d be better off playing Under 20 or maybe he’s better off going straight into senior.” the Kerry forward said.
Senior is obviously a lot more physically demanding than minor, the players are bigger, faster and stronger and Geaney said that will play a factor in how quick and ready Clifford can be to make the leap:
“I think it’s just down to the development and how quick he develops into a senior footballer physically because the skills are sensational.
“It took Mark (O’Connor) only a winter to become a senior footballer to start in a professional sport after six games he started in their senior outfit, hopefully, David Clifford will have a short turnaround to get him physically able with the game.
“With that is being physically big enough but there’s also to conditioning you need to do to make sure you don’t get injured or that you can cope with the stresses but hopefully he’ll get there.
