Kerry star David Clifford is hopeful Jack O'Connor will be in charge of the Kingdom in 2026 for their back-to-back assault on the Sam Maguire.
In the aftermath of their All-Ireland final win over Donegal, O’Connor, who has never managed to retain the famed trophy despite his illustrious CV, hinted that his third spell in charge of the county may be coming to an end – but his answer certainly wasn't emphatic and Clifford is hopeful that he’ll sign up for another season.
"It would be great if we could keep it the same way it was for last year," he told RTÉ Sport as he picked up his latest PwC GAA/GPA Footballer of the Month award following his superb performances in July.
"I thought we had a brilliant set-up so hopefully they’ll figure things out."
Clifford’s latest individual award will be followed by more in the coming months with an All-Star locked in while he will be short-listed for the Player of the Year award, having won it in two of the last three seasons already.
The Fossa man received an extraordinary amount of media coverage in the build-up to the final, but a nine-point haul pointed to a man unperturbed by what was said beforehand – and he feels that playing in the current era may help with that.
"I don't know whether I’ve been lucky or unlucky in the fact that when I started playing it was the social media age, there’s been a lot of hype all the time.
"Not that it’s always being there, but there’s a bit of external noise, you try not to listen to it too much.
"I wouldn’t have put any major pressure on myself coming into the final, I felt we had a good game-plan, I felt we had a good chance coming into the game, satisfied with how we prepared."
When the Allianz League rolls around at the start of next year, Clifford will just have turned 27 and arguably will be entering his prime years.
What more can come from a man already considered by many to be the greatest of all time? Offering a note of caution, Clifford pointed out that Michael Owen once said that his prime came when he was 17 and the Kerry attacker said that he by no means feels that he is the finished article.
"You have doubts every day, 'am I still good enough?’ I think everybody has those. It’s natural to have doubts in all walks of life.
"We didn’t actually put much attention on winning the All-Ireland this year. That was our goal of course, but as boring as it sounds, we actually did take it game by game – we didn’t mention the All-Ireland much, we didn’t talk about it."
Much has been made of Clifford’s incredible total of 8-62 in this year’s championship, but equally as impressive was the side's ability to crank up their two-point returns.
In the first half of the final, they took 11 two-point attempts, Clifford landing three and winning the free for the other successful attempt converted by free-taker Seán O’Shea.
On their way to the Division 1 title in the spring, the orange flag barely fluttered with 14 in their eight games.
Nine championship games, by contrast, brought 31 with Clifford registering 12 in all.
"It evolved as the weather got better, when the air is hotter the ball can travel a bit further," said Clifford, who will be mindful of such dynamics when playing in the Irish Open pro-am next month.
"Throughout the league with wet footballs, wet days, it’s harder to kick them.
"It’s (still) day by day, game by game, we put a focus on it like we did all the other aspects that mattered."
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