Of all the things achieved by Michael 'Babs' Keating over an illustrious GAA career, one simple phrase has endured decades.
The Tipperary legend, who landed Liam MacCarthy twice as both a player and manager with the Premier County, has been a colourful presence in the hurling landscape since his inter-county debut in the '60s.
The 82-year-old – surely the last man to have appeared in an All-Ireland final barefoot (10 minutes into the second half of the 1971 decider against Kilkenny a nail came up through a boot so he discarded both of them) – became one of the most quotable managers, never afraid to shoot from the hip.
"You can’t win derbies with donkeys" and "like sheep running around in a heap" are two of his most oft-quoted lines, but it is another that has really stood the test of time.
Whether he coined it himself is unclear, but it is regularly referenced by GAA players, often attributed to the Tipperary native.
"A clap on the back is six inches away from a kick in the arse," has been a widely used go-to phrase for years, an acknowledgement that all praise must be viewed through the prism of deep suspicion. In that context, all media engagements should be treated in a guarded manner.
With the proliferation of media – the days of pinning an article on the dressing room wall to get the juices flowing appear to be consigned to history – the reluctance from players to reveal anything of note is understandable. The individual can never be seen to supersede the collective.
In February the GPA released a document that, in part, dealt with players’ interaction with the media and a splintered audience. It served to highlight competing needs.
"Increasingly, coverage is driven by short clips, social media commentary or isolated quotes, often removed from their wider context," the report said.
"This environment can leave players feeling exposed and misunderstood, leading many to limit engagement and avoid bringing their full selves to public conversations. At the same time, players often operate within tight controls around when and how they can speak, with management teams understandably cautious about unintended controversy or distraction."
In the bowels of Croke Park this week, SuperValu ambassador David Clifford was one of a number of inter-county footballers speaking to the press.
Courteous and engaged, he treated each question with respect, while no state secrets were revealed.
The chat meandered into his ‘Never Once’ sportwear brand launched with McKeever Sports in time for the Christmas market last year.
The Fossa man’s iconic acrobatic pose adorns a wide range of clothing targeted to his legion of followers, and while many would lap up the opportunity to promote his own brand, even someone of the stature of Clifford doesn’t want to appear like a tall poppy.
Whether the 27-year-old is the greatest player of all-time is a subjective matter with recency bias playing a significant part. There seems little doubt that he is head and shoulders the best player of his generation.
The fact that Clifford closed out last year’s All-Ireland winning campaign with 0-07, 1-09 and 0-09 (just 0-04 from frees) without a player of the match award points to a player judged to a different standard.
Humility, and respect for the team, wouldn’t allow the PE teacher to get carried away with his standing in the game.
When the opportunity comes to chat about his own clothing range, even the three-time and current Footballer of the Year is aware of outside perception.
"McKeever came to me with the idea (the approach was first made in 2023) and I kind of put it off and put it off and then they came to me again.
"You were taking a bit of a chance in the sense that how was it going to look? I suppose I'd be conscious of not wanting to appear, 'who does this fella think he is?' kind of stuff, but it was probably getting to the stage where it was being done, and there were jerseys appearing that I had nothing to do with."
Clifford has no real social media presence and does little outside of in-season interviews. How well the public really knows the football icon is difficult to say.
Declan Lee, a PR and marketing consultant, suggested earlier this year that making a success of a product based on a personal brand would be difficult given he has little truck with brand building.
"Unless it changes, Clifford may continue to walk the steps of the Hogan Stand collecting silverware, but his clothing brand might be making an early championship exit," he wrote.
Clifford says he was taken aback by the degree of enthusiasm for the branded range at Christmas. Was it a 'pinch me' moment?
"Maybe it was, it was probably nice enough to see that there was that amount of interest out there."
Asked what the future could hold, an expansion to the range or even an international foray, Clifford is non-committal.
"I'm not sure. I'm probably not heavily involved in that side, but, it seems to be (going well)."
The primary focus of course will be to keep Sam Maguire within county bounds. The league's top scorer featured heavily in the Kingdom's Division 1 campaign, starting six of the eight games and coming on against Monaghan, a contrast to recent years where heavy club exertions saw him eased gently back into the fold.
"I suppose I was available, so I played. That was the long and short of it, really. What was I going to say to Jack, 'I need another break'!? You can't really do it every year, do you know?"
Next up will be an assignment against Cork. Clifford has only taken on the Rebels in a Munster final in Killarney once before and the expectation is that the contest will be closer than the 22-point margin in 2021.
Whatever silverware may follow, Clifford isn’t hung up on targets. What will be will be.
"I try to not set targets for anything really, because I found maybe when I was doing that, I was, let's say take a league campaign. I was saying to myself, 'right, we'll just get through this league, then we'll just get through the Munster Championship, we'll get back to the games in Croke Park', and you were kind of just wishing away the days.
"So I don't really set any targets for anything to be honest, I just kind of go with it day by day."
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