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Kerry captain Murphy impressed by 'brilliant' Paudie Clifford

Paudie Clifford of Kerry during the Munster GAA Football Senior Championship semi-final match between Tipperary and Kerry at Semple Stadium in Thurles, Tipperary. 

Paudie Clifford of Kerry during the Munster GAA Football Senior Championship semi-final match between Tipperary and Kerry at Semple Stadium in Thurles, Tipperary. 

By Paul Keane

Kerry junior manager Jimmy Keane just about nailed it when discussing the ability and future prospects of Paudie Clifford in the summer of 2018.

Clifford, the older brother of David who had already made his senior Championship debut for Kerry after a stunning minor career, was doing his stuff at the time for the Kerry juniors.

They'd just beaten Kildare in an All-Ireland junior semi-final in Navan and Clifford had starred, shooting 1-3, prompting Keane to maintain that there was literally no talent gap between the brothers.

"I do really believe it," said Keane. "Maybe David got more high profile recognition through the minors and all that he achieved. He's been so much on television and stuff like that whereas Paudie would have been a late developer."

Keane concluded that Clifford the elder 'has a great future ahead of him' and here he is now, three years later and the current favourite to be named Footballer of the Year for 2021.

There's a long way to go in this year's Championship, of course. To reach a final against Mayo, Kerry need to beat Tyrone in Saturday's rescheduled semi-final.

At this stage, Clifford will be a marked man having returned tallies of 0-2 (Clare), 0-1 (Tipperary), 0-3 (Cork) in the Munster championship campaign, inspiring those around him with his mixture of silken skills and steely endeavour.

"I played with him for East Kerry last year," said Kerry captain Paul Murphy of Clifford. "He had a really good year for us. The year before that, 2019, East Kerry won as well but we weren't a part of that, the Rathmore lads.

"He was very good that year as well and was called into the panel on the back of that, for 2020. He's doing really well, he's very fit, he's working very hard and he strikes me as a guy who has got a jersey and is not going to give up this jersey without a fight.

"It's brilliant for us, he's putting in big performances and he's working very hard for the team. He's doing the off the ball dirty work as well, he's not shirking any of that. He's playing really well and we're all hoping he'll continue his form."

Paul Murphy of Kerry during the GAA All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Launch at Ross Castle in Killarney, Kerry. 

Paul Murphy of Kerry during the GAA All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Launch at Ross Castle in Killarney, Kerry. 

With the Clifford brothers now pulling strings throughout the Kerry attack, the Kingdom have struck a remarkable 21-132 in seven Allianz League and Championship games this season. That's an average of 27.8 points per game.

One of Kerry's big wins came against Kerry in the semi-final of the league, when they struck 6-15 in Killarney and won by 16 points. Murphy isn't convinced that it's entirely relevant ahead of Saturday's rematch at Croke Park with a place in the All-Ireland final on the line.

"No, no, it's a new game and it's a completely different game really," he maintained. "We had a good result against Tyrone in the league but I don't think you could compare the two matches in terms of their importance or what's at stake. That match was in Killarney where we have a really good record.

"We had no travel to the game compared to Tyrone, whereas this is in Croke Park, it's an All-Ireland semi-final, it's Munster versus Ulster. Tyrone have come through a very difficult Ulster championship campaign beating Division 1 teams in Donegal and Monaghan and they're developing as a team and as a squad.

"They were able to ship the blow of losing a number of players to close contact situations with Covid and it didn't affect them in any way against Monaghan. They're a serious outfit and we have a big challenge ahead of us."

As good as Kerry have been, Murphy acknowledged they started relatively slowly against Cork in the Munster final.

"I think the big takeaway was probably, like, I don't think there were any major issues, there were a couple of turnovers that hurt us but I suppose what I was probably happiest with what was that there was no panic, we stuck to the gameplan, we made little tweaks as we were going," he said.

"We probably carried the ball a little bit more than we had been doing earlier in the game. That probably created chances for us just to get the scoreboard ticking over and we racked up a few points and then Brian got a goal which put a small bit of breathing space into it and from there we didn't look back. What pleased me most was that we stuck to our guns, we didn't panic when Cork got a little bit of a run on us. We toughed it out from there."