Latest news with #All-Irelands
The Irish Sun
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
‘My voice is gone' – Listen to ecstatic Radio Kerry commentary of David Clifford's best All-Ireland final moments
DAVID Clifford was a joy to watch on Sunday and Radio Kerry's commentary was almost as enjoyable to listen to. The Fossa phenom may not have been on the ball much for he was deadly accurate in making his touches county as Advertisement 2 Tim Moynihan embodies why local commentary is so often the best form of the art Credit: @radiokerrysport 2 Clifford scored three two-pointers to help fire them to their 39th crown Radio Kerry have released a near five-minute highlights package of their commentary duo Tim Moynihan and Ambrose O'Donovan calling the action from The whole video flies by with our personal favourite line describing the Kingdom's frenzied press being akin to "like wasps on cowdung". A close second is him branding the 26-year-old a mixture of a ballerina and a warrior owing to his balance as he rapidly sidestepped two despairing Donegal men before firing over with his right foot. There's also a nice additional bit of colour provided by Moynihan noting that Clifford's two-pointer on the cusp of half-time left Off the Ball double-act Paddy Andrews and Advertisement Read More On GAA For as much as the soon to be three-time Footballer of the Year was in God mode on the pitch, there was an amusing example of him still Paudie Clifford may have to look up to make eye contact with David but he very much lives up to the older brother stereotype. The older Clifford is the more verbose of the two and drove most of their Burlington Hotel interview Some of the highlights included him noting that they were on the same teams growing up despite the age gap as their community of Fossa is so small that playing numbers were often tight. Advertisement Most read in GAA Football The playmaker also joked about his 76 possessions over the course of Harking back to the widely lauded Football Review Committee, he quipped: "Jim Gavin and Eamon Fitzmaurice probably didn't envision me soloing the ball on the spot about 100 times when they drew up the new rules!" Paudie Clifford teases David over childhood nickname during hilarious RTE interview after All-Ireland heroics The best moment, however, was a classic case of a big brother slagging his younger sibling. Asked if they'd always had an innate on-pitch chemistry, Paudie shot back: "The chemistry wasn't great now, we fought every day for about two years straight! Advertisement "Mom was just sick of of dealing with David crying every two minutes. They actually used to call him 'Watery eyes' because he used to cry so much! So that was the chemistry now." AT THE RIGHT PITCH While Paudie was all smiles and in relaxed form by that stage of the day, his immediate post-match interview He vented: "I suppose as a team, we would feel disrespected because we were in three of the last four All-Irelands and we've won two of them now. "And to be called a one-man team when I see myself some of the work that our lads put in… Advertisement 'Like, Joe O'Connor, the turnovers, winning balls, scoring, Jason Foley, Brian Ó Beaglaioch, Gavin White – I'm only naming a few. I see the work that they put in every day. 'To be called a one-man team then, it's nearly like it's disrespectful. It's kind of personal. I suppose that's the angle we were coming from. 'We were close against Armagh last year and we'd be our own worst critics as well. We admitted that we've under-performed definitely as a team over some of the years. 'But I suppose with the work we put in and the players we have there, for them things to be said, it's not nice to hear it." Advertisement
The Irish Sun
19 hours ago
- Sport
- The Irish Sun
‘I felt like packing it up' – Jack O'Connor reveals he thought about quitting Kerry job last year
FIVE-TIME All-Ireland-winning manager Jack O'Connor came close to quitting last year. The Kerry boss led the Munster giants to their 39th crown with 2 The 64-year-old has had three stints as Kerry manager as well as managing Kildare 2 Kerry were defeated 1-18 to 1-16 by Armagh after extra-time in last year's semi-final But last year's And the Dromid Pearses man admits he thought of stepping away before this Sam Maguire feat alongside new coaches Cian O'Neill and Aodán Mac Gearailt. He said: 'I did. I certainly did. I found the year in general tough because we suffered a heartbreaking defeat to Armagh in a game that we appeared to be in control of. 'Then I had my whole management break up. So I had to try and put the management together while I was dealing with the personal heartbreak of losing an All-Ireland semi-final. Read more on GAA 'That can be a tough, lonely place to be, when you're trying to do that. 'So right from this time last year I found the going tough and there were times when I felt like packing it up. 'I'm glad I stuck with it and saw the year out because, sure, we got the reward on Sunday. But it was a tough year.' Those painful memories are all in the past now as, in their thousands, the Kingdom welcomed home their heroes yesterday following their stunning 1-26 to 0-19 thumping of the Ulster champions. Most read in GAA Football The players were paraded through Tralee on an open-top bus before another welcome home in Killarney. Their philosophical boss though, admits he could not have envisaged last night's joyous scenes in his homeland without some heart-to-hearts with his family, players and coaching staff. David Clifford's son adorably hijacks RTE interview after dad dominates All-Ireland final O'Connor — who also claimed All-Irelands as Kingdom boss in 2004, 2006, 2009, 2022 — added: 'I would be conversing with some of the players and they would have said, 'Hang in there!' 'It's tough going when you lose your management team, lads that you soldier with and that you trust and confide in. 'Then you have to try and gel with a new management team. That can be tough at times. As it turned out the lads have been brilliant. 'Cian O'Neill, James Costello, Aodán Mac Gearailt and Pa McCarthy were absolutely brilliant. 'As it turned out they brought real freshness and real new ideas to the set-up. I think the players relished that.'
Irish Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Sport
- Irish Daily Mirror
Donegal have problems to solve but don't write them off yet
The scoreboard never lies. But sometimes it fails to tell the whole truth and nothing else but. And this was the situation after 56 minutes of Sunday's All-Ireland. On the giant screen above Hill 16, the bare details were outlined in big, bold print: Kerry 0-22, Donegal 0-18. There was no question over who had been the better team. The scoreboard doesn't lie, after all. READ MORE: Passionate Paudie Clifford fires back at Kerry's critics after All-Ireland final win READ MORE: David Clifford hailed as the 'greatest ever' as he wins second All-Ireland Football title But from time to time it does leave out details. And this was one. Across the previous 15 minutes, Donegal had outscored Kerry by eight points to three. Better again, they were just after thieving Shane Ryan's kick-out, the play transferred towards Paddy McBrearty, so often their hero, introduced here as a potential saviour. Except there was a problem. McBrearty is so long in the tooth that his debut came way back in 2011, during Jim McGuinness' first spell. Time, as has been proven repeatedly, always wins against an athlete. It affects the body, erodes pace, stops a footballer reproducing the things their younger self managed to effortlessly do. And that was the dilemma McBrearty was up against. As the ball edged towards the touchline, McBrearty had a choice. Bend low but risk allowing the ball creep over the sideline or kick it along the ground towards a colleague. He took the second option and chose wrong, losing possession and with it all the momentum Donegal had been carefully building over the previous 15 minutes. From the turnover, Sean O'Shea eventually scored a two-pointer. Donegal, meanwhile, scored just once more in the remaining 14 minutes, losing the endgame 1-4 to 0-1. It may not have seemed such a big deal at the time but in hindsight this was a seismic moment. And it led to the inevitable question after such a convincing defeat whether McBrearty and a few other Donegal players had taken too much physical pounding over the years. After all, Michael Murphy is about to turn 36. McBrearty, for his part, is only 31 but has just completed his 15th season as an inter-county player. Between this pair, and Ryan McHugh, there are 219 Championship appearances on their CVs. And it showed, McHugh forced off with an injury, Murphy pushing his body to extraordinary lengths to last the 70 minutes, McBrearty struggling in the 15 minutes he got on the park. What if this is it for all three players? What if they all go together over the winter? Or what if they stay but aren't able to reproduce the magic in 2026? Those are the questions that McGuinness will be thinking about on his long trip home today. From history's scrapbook, he'll know that sometimes a defeat becomes a stepping stone - Offaly in 1981, Cork in 1987/88 and The Rebels again in 2007/09. But unless you are Dublin or Kerry, winners of 70 All-Irelands between them, there are no guarantees or 'rite of passage' as McGuinness alluded to in advance of Sunday's final. For every Offaly story from 1982, there are tales of woe: Roscommon in '80, Galway in '83, and Tyrone in '86, Mayo countless times, Kildare in '98, Cork in '99, Down in 2010. Each county lost a final. On no occasion did it lead to something better which is something that often happens outside the Big Two. Teams emerge. Teams lose big games. Teams then disappear. Will this be the case for Donegal? Perhaps not because the evidence suggests Sunday was a blip rather than the start of a worrying trend. Following Sunday's 10-point defeat, it has been suggested that Donegal have a problem scoring goals. Yet only Kerry and Galway raised more green flags in this year's Championship. Then there is the accusation they don't have a marquee forward. And yet between them, Murphy, Conor O'Donnell and Oisin Langan scored nine points from play yesterday, Murphy finishing the season as the Championship's second highest scorer; O'Donnell and Langan as the summer's third and fourth top scorers from play. What if the younger two push on from here? What if Murphy hangs on? What if their messianic manager stays on? While he didn't have his best day on Sunday - failing to figure out that Paudie Clifford needed to be closed down - McGuinness has previously shown his capacity to recover from setbacks, the 2013 defeat to Mayo being way worse than Sunday's loss to Kerry. The following year they bounced back, defeated Dublin, made it an All-Ireland. This season too is an upgrade on last year - a fourth All-Ireland final coming on the back of a semi-final appearance in 2024. Continuing their upward trajectory will take nerve, not necessarily a change of manager but certainly change within the manager. Alex Ferguson constantly evolved, and frequently replaced his assistants. Bill Belichick was the same, likewise Brian Cody and Joe Schmidt. What McGuinness now needs is a fresh voice rather than a dissenting one, a person who can replicate the role Rory Gallagher provided in 2011 and 2012. Remember only one team in the country were better than them in 2025 and even if that was by a considerable margin, the reality remains that for Donegal to reach the top, evolution rather than revolution will get them there. Don't write them off just yet.
RTÉ News
2 days ago
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Gavin White hails 'The Chief' of the Kingdom
Victorious Kerry captain Gavin White has paid tribute to his manager Jack O'Connor and the backroom team, while detailing his own evolution as a player en route to lifting Sam Maguire at Croke Park on Sunday. White was named the man of the match for his personal contribution in Kerry's emphatic 1-26 to 0-19 win over Donegal at HQ. While the Dr Crokes clubman was winning a Celtic Cross for a second time, Sunday's win marked the fifth occasion O'Connor had led the Kingdom to an All-Ireland SFC crown in three spells in charge, with those earlier titles coming in 2004, 2006, 2009, 2022. Held in both reverence and affection, White explained a newish sobriquet for the man in charge on RTÉ's The Sunday Game. "The Chief, that's just a name we became accustomed to with Jack over the last couple of years," White revealed. "When I was growing up, Jack would have been in charge of some unbelievable Kerry teams. "He was involved with us in the 2014 and 2015 teams that won All-Ireland minors and he came back in with us in 2022 and drove us on again. "He has been a credit to Kerry football and I know all the lads love him to bits. "To come back after winning All-Irelands with previous teams, going back to minors and building up to winning an All-Ireland today and in 2022 is a credit to him." Of the match itself and Kerry's gameplan, he added: "It was one of our targets at the start of the game to maybe make our mark in the first 10 minutes and use our experience that we've had in the last couple of years. "Thankfully, we were able to do that. We aimed to do that at the start of the first half and the second half and it paid off." White has dedicated himself this season to tailoring his game to the rules changes, with special emphasis on improving his role in winning breaking ball (something he did to remarkable effect at the start of both halves). "I suppose like any player in the country, with the new rules that came in, you have to evolve your game to some degree, the kickouts being a huge part and breaking ball being key to primary possession – something that probably wouldn't have been one of my strengths in previous years, so it was obviously something I needed to target this year," he explained. "It was a bit of a struggle when I came back after the club campaign but I gradually got to grips with it and thankfully it paid off on All-Ireland final day. "We're very lucky with the coaching ticket that we have. "I remember sitting down with Cian O'Neill in the Gleneagle Hotel a number of months ago and he set out his stall in what he expected of me for this year. "I met him after the game and that was one of the first things he said to me. "Every player evolves. The coaching we got right throughout the year was absolutely immense, right from Jack all the way down. "But even the players themselves, they really notched it up another couple of gears, especially after that defeat in Tullamore [against Meath] and really expected a bit more from each other and drove on the performances and drove on training."
Irish Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Daily Mirror
Paudie Clifford: Kerry felt disrespected by David Clifford 'one-man team' jibe
Paudie Clifford says Kerry felt 'disrespected' by pundits who labeled them a one man team. The Kingdom's critics were referring to David Clifford, and they got their answer in the victories over Armagh, Tyrone and Donegal to what was always nonsense analysis. Jack O'Connor's men were also on the back foot after losing their final round All-Ireland group game to Meath with some stinging criticism locally and from pundits. "I suppose as a team, we would feel disrespected because we were in three of the last four All-Irelands and we've won two of them now,' said 27 year old playmaker Clifford. 'And to be called a one-man team when I see myself, some of the work that our lads put in. 'Like Joe O'Connor, the turnovers, winning balls, scoring. Jason Foley, Brian Ó Beaglaoich, Gavin White. 'I'm only naming a few. I see the work that they put in every day. To be called a one-man team then, it's nearly like it's disrespectful. It's kind of personal. 'I suppose that's the angle we were coming from. Obviously he's (David Clifford) a top, top player and one of the greatest players ever. 'I suppose the new rules have probably given him a new lease of life. But he's had an unbelievable year - delighted for him." Clifford continued: 'We were close against Armagh last year and we'd be our own worst critics as well. 'We admitted that we've under-performed definitely as a team over some of the years. 'But I suppose with the work we put in and the players we have there, for them things to be said, it's not nice to hear it." Kerry had two goal chances at the start of the second half against Armagh that would almost certainly have paved the way for a victory in last year's semi-final that would have landed them in an All-Ireland final against Galway. The year before they were narrowly beaten by Dublin in the All-Ireland Final after landing the Sam Maguire in 2022 against Galway. And the suspicion is that under the new rules and with the Clifford brothers to the fore, more All-Irelands will follow with the Fossa pair winning their second Celtic Cross yesterday. Paudie Clifford had a whopping 76 touches as he ran the Kerry challenge. "Was it?' he said of his possessions. 'I didn't feel like that. I was just happy to be able to try and play make and create as many chances as I can for the other lads. 'It was an enjoyable game to play because everything did work out for us. But if things went the other way, it wouldn't have been." David Clifford's two pointer after the hooter at the end of the first half was a huge moment sending Kerry in seven points up and totally in command. "It was massive,' said his older brother. 'But at the same time, we had in the back of our heads that when Donegal played Monaghan, (Rory) Beggan scored a two-pointer just before the half and Donegal still came out strong, which they did. 'They came out strong in the second half (last Sunday) and won a lot of ball around the middle and got it back to four. They could have got it back to three. 'So after the Monaghan game, we were in no way resting on our laurels. 'We just said we have to keep going, keep going and just keep being kind of the aggressors. Keep taking our scores when we could. Thankfully we did."
