Clifford and O'Callaghan two modern legends.. The tale of the tape

Irish Daily Mirror

2 days ago

It was Coretta Clay, an aunt to Cassius, who first labelled the prize fighting supernova who, as Muhammad Ali, would go on to shake the world, 'the Alpha and the Omega.'
The beginning and the end.
Those whose knees have trembled before stepping onto a rectangle of grass to spar with David Clifford or Con O'Callaghan would hardly protest the laying of Coretta's sweeping claim onto the shoulders of Kerry and Dublin's respective polestars.
For both teams, the sense this weekend is of their world starting and finishing with the fitness and form of their leading men, a photo-finish required to determine which of the pair is, at this moment in time, more critical to their side's fortunes.
Charlie Redmond, the former Dublin forward who is one of the game's shrewder observers, offers an interesting take as Tyrone and Armagh loom into focus for football's Old Firm.
'Right now, I would say Con is more important to Dublin than Clifford is to Kerry. Because, with Paul Geaney, Seanie O'Shea and Paudie Clifford, I think Kerry have better supporting forwards.
'Look at Dublin's two-pointer total. It's terrible and that's down to a lack of confidence in their forwards. Without Con, the attack can lose all cohesion.'
With Clifford, the Fossa master who seems to deliver a Mona Lisa almost every time he steps behind the easel, the Alpha and Omega argument is not one that can easily be trampled underfoot.
He glided into our world as a wunderkind, a teenage divinity, scorer of 4-4 in an All-Ireland minor final, his reputation dwarfing even Carrauntoohil.
Somehow, even the ear-splitting drumroll that accompanied the Chosen One onto the stage, understated his ability to cause our eyeballs, as one observer of Roger Federer famously commented, to protrude like novelty-shop eyeballs.
The sense of irresistible menace that accompanied his latest eruption – a 3-7 avalanche that swiftly interred Cavan even as he squandered three further goal chances - offered just the latest illustration of how the Kingdom's fortunes remain so inextricably wedded to their generational supe talent, an avatar of the impossible-made-flesh.
Many are the days he walks in a special light, unmarkable, unstoppable, a force of nature, a trick of the light, a killing machine.
On the days he falls a little short of his impossibly high standards (2024) or when injury diminishes him (extra time v Tyrone in 2021, after an otherworldly 70 minutes) Kerry tend to crash and burn,
Many have to come to regard Clifford and Kerry as one and the same, his supporting cast, to borrow Hugh McIlvanney's memorable depiction of Ali's heavyweight predecessors, no more than 'blurred figures dancing behind frosted glass.'
If that does an enormous injustice to the profound influence asserted by his exceptional playmaking sibling, Paudie, to Seanie O'Shea's ball striking or the growing authority of Joe O'Connor, still one truth remains cast in bronze. It is the one that says it is impossible to imagine Kerry winning an All-Ireland without their pilot light fully aflame. You might as well ask a 747 to soar across the Atlantic's mighty expanse having just clipped away the mighty beast's wings.
As a point of reference, perhaps Diego Maradona carrying a moderate Argentine team to the World Cup through the sheer breadth of his genius (and the bypassing the game's handball laws) might come closest to explaining Clifford's task.
Joe Brolly, never a man to run from an inflammatory soundbite, is unequivocal as Kieran McGeeney's All-Ireland kingpins ready themselves for battle: '[Kerry's] problem is that they only have one forward. If you could call David Clifford a problem.'
Tomorrow, as Kerry's summer arrives at a point of no return and they seek to unseat Armagh's increasingly impressive champions, their superstar, as he does each time he dons that storied uniform, will shoulder the burden of an entire tribe's hopes.
Imagine the psychological weight he carries on his back, immense even for a player apart, one who long ago (his first 20 championship outings yielded 5-58 from play) made the suspension of disbelief among his audience a defining calling card.
O'Callaghan has had to learn to bench press similarly substantial dumbbells of expectation.
In Dublin's post-Fenton, post-McCarthy time of need, the old sheen of invincibility a distant memory, facing Tyrone without Con would represent the pulping of confidence.
If, as many have feared all week, O'Callaghan's ongoing hamstring issues – he sat out last week's workman like victory over Cork - sideline or restrict him tonight, many of Sky Blue disposition would be inclined to saddle up the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and have them gallop across Hill 16 just ahead of throw-in.
It is that stark. Even while clearly hobbled, Con contributed five invaluable points, a game-altering spearhead as Dessie Farrell's side kept their season alive in a tense taking down of Derry a fortnight ago.
James McCarthy, for the first time in 15 summers of absurdly high achievement looking on from outside the white lines, spoke for a county under siege from its misgivings: 'Every Dublin fan is praying Con is going to be fit.'
Aaron Kernan, the Armagh player turned pundit went further, believing the result hinges on whether O'Callaghan can handle 70 minutes against opponents who number Donegal among their summer of 2025 victims.
'He makes that big of a difference to Dublin. Not just his skillset. It's his presence, calmness, the composure and then the ability to put scores on the board whenever he's under pressure.'
Among the little known facts about Dublin's paramount power is that he is a serious student of the game of cricket.
Con, then, would appreciate the American writer Wright Thompson's evocative portrayal of the celebrated Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar towards the end of his innings as a titan of the game.
'His artistry he now holds as a part of himself, like a chamber of his heart.'
In truth, it is Clifford, as balletic and elegant and beautifully balanced as he is cold-eyed and predatory, who is immediately summoned to mind as the Tendulkar of an Irish summer.
O'Callaghan is more about explosive power (though Clifford, too, is a physical beast comfortable seeking his own ball), razor-edged conviction and carnivorous intent, qualities which elevate the three-time All-Star to the highest rank of forwards to have played the game.
One verbal-portrait tracing Erling Haaland's assault on the Premier League single season scoring record fits O'Callaghan as snugly as Dublin's Sky Blue number 14 shirt.
'A footballer who expresses power, edge and certainty more clearly than any other...lethal at being lethal.'
Scarcely out of his teens in 2017 yet already equipped with the precise GPS coordinates of Tyrone and Mayo's jugular vein, he devoured both those opponents, his early goals the launchpad from which Dublin and his own career blasted into orbit.
There was the two-goal 2019 afternoon when he did everything bar place a crown of thorns on Mayo's tormented leader, Lee Keegan; later, the conjuring from nowhere of a devastating 2020 All-Ireland final goal. Lethal at being lethal.
The heavyweight ordnance of King Con's artillery fire can be weighed by the statistic which announces him as the only player in 130 years of competition to have scored a hat-trick of goals against Kerry.
That 3-4 in a 2024 league game an illustration of why he has become so vital to the big city psyche.
Remembering his freshman years of unforgettable alchemy, it is sobering to think that if Dublin lose tonight, Con - to many still a youthful figure, a boy prince of Croke Park – will not play another championship match before celebrating his 30th birthday.
O'Callaghan (29) and Clifford (26) are often compared and contrasted.
Much as Messi and Ronaldo, like Federer and Nadal, pushed each other to even wilder feats of jaw-dropping achievement, so these GAA bluebloods have, perhaps, propelled each other to high-water marks of invention and flair and murderous intent.
Because Dublin under Jim Gavin and in Farrell's early years enjoyed perhaps the greatest accumulation of talent the game has known, their reliance on the Cuala forward was not as acute as Kerry's dependency on Clifford.
How could it be when they had gamechangers and generals in such glorious abundance? Fenton, McCarthy, Mannion, Connolly, Brogan, Rock, Macauley, Flynn, McCaffrey, McManamon, McMahon and his own indestructible clubmate (and Clifford's 2023 All-Ireland final nemesis), Mick Fitzsimons, amounted to virtually a dressing-room packed with alpha males.
From the cast of towering attacking talents from those days of plenty, only the inestimable Ciaran Kilkenny, who turns 32 in nine days time but who gave one of the performances of the summer in Galway, remains alongside Con.
O'Callaghan's presence has become as soothing and settling and vital for Dublin as Clifford's has long been for Kerry.
His absence – as in the five point group stage loss to Armagh, when the Sky Blues fired 18 wides – sets off a shrill chorus of alarm bells.
This weekend – assuming O'Callaghan plays, perhaps even more so if he doesn't – might illustrate which of the two is the weapon that brings summer sovereignty more sharply into focus. Who is the more expert at turning a key in the lock of hope?
Who, in the high summer of 2025, is football's Alpha and Omega.