By John Harrington

Kerry senior Paul Geaney expects to be sharing a dressing-room with All-Ireland winning Kerry minor captain, David Clifford, in 2018.

Clifford scored a sensational 4-4 from play in the Minor Final against Derry last Sunday to show just why so many people rate him as the finest young talent to emerge in the game in a very long time.

Geaney believes there’s a good chance Clifford will by-pass the U-20 grade next year and instead join up with the Kerry senior football team, but cautions it would be unrealistic to expect him to immediately make the grade at the highest level.

“I would imagine that he will be training (with the Kerry seniors) straight away,” said Clifford.

“Development is a big thing. It is not often that a player comes out of minors and goes straight into seniors, where you are being marked by someone who is bigger and stronger than you and possibly as quick if not quicker than you.

“It will be interesting to see if he comes straight in. You can only play in the under-20’s if you do not play senior so there is a catch 22 there.

“In terms of his personal development he might be better off playing under-20 than going straight into senior. I think it is down to his development and to how quickly he develops into a senior footballer. I am talking physically because his skills are sensational.

“It will hopefully be a short turnaround for him in getting physically able for the game.

“With that there is the thing of being physically big enough but there is also the conditioning that you need to do to make sure that you don’t get injured and that you can cope with the training stress. That is the other part of it but hopefully he will make the step-up and I get to play with him for a couple of years.”

The fear in Kerry is that Clifford might opt for a career as a professional in the Australian Football League rather than develop into the Gaelic Football super-star they all hope he can become.

A piece on the AFL website that was published before the All-Ireland Final suggested a number of clubs will be interested in recruiting Clifford.

Kerry are still smarting from losing highly talented young midfielder Mark O’Connor to AFL side Geelong, but Geaney is hopeful that Clifford will instead decide to stay in Ireland and focus on combining Gaelic Football with a career here.

“It is out of our hands as players and it is going to be David’s decision to make,” said Geaney.

“I hope he stays. I think he can achieve more at home. What we are looking at now is Dublin having done a three-in-a-row and we are under pressure down in Kerry.

“He can help to contribute and be the main man going forward for Kerry. He can achieve more by staying at home. He will do fine career-wise as well, people around will look after him.

“Mark was a different story, he wanted to play in the AFL from 16 years on. He was a different prospect as well, a different type of player as well.

“Mark is very athletic, a good fielder out the field but he was not a scorer as such and maybe David’s talent may not directly translate into being a good AFL footballer because it is more about being athletic than skills-based.

“The skills in it are catch/Kick and fast hands. You don’t often see a guy bouncing it in the AFL so it is totally different and they are two different prospects. I don’t think it would suit David as much whereas the AFL suits Mark. Hopefully we won’t even be debating it next year.

“We should try everything in our power to try and keep him at home but I think he is happy enough. He is in his second year in IT Tralee and I think there is a county board scholarship with the IT so he has that at the moment.

“That is part of it. It is making sure that he has a career as well at home. That he has options provided by Kerry people, that we look after him.”