Once in a while a minor player comes along, either in hurling or football, that makes punters put down their pints and get into the ground early.
These are the young stars that even their county’s most casual supporters have heard of and are tipped to make a rapid step up to senior level.
Over the years we have witnessed some exceptional minors, the type of players that looked ready to take on the big boys and many of them went on to fulfill their potential.
Amongst the best minor footballers over the past few decades have been Down’s Benny Coulter, Ciaran Kilkenny of Dublin and Brian ‘Beano’ McDonald in Laois colours.
Probably the most talked about minor of our times was Joe Canning, who won two hurling All-Irelands with Galway, played in a losing final and added an All-Ireland club title with Portumna – all before reaching 18.
This was a boy that people travelled miles just to watch, the type that the phrase ‘worth the entry fee alone’ was coined for.
And now football has an equivalent – teenage Kerry sensation David Clifford.
It’s no exaggeration to say that there has never been a more talked-about teenage footballer before. But that’s what you get when you score 4-04 in an All-Ireland final, collecting your second winner’s medal in the process.
Legends the length and breadth of the country have lined up to praise him, predicting great things for his future.
So who is David Clifford? He’s a 19-year-old from Fossa, just outside Killarney, who has lit up pretty much every big game he has ever played in.
For most of his time as a minor he was simply unmarkable.
After one game in Munster against Cork, Kingdom manager Peter Keane was asked why he didn’t take the youngster off – both to give the player and the opposition a rest.
"If you have a Merc, do you leave it in the garage?" was his response.
He powered Kerry to the latter two of their All-Ireland minor final four in-a-row and he signed off at the grade with possibly his finest performance up to that point.
"Impossible to contain," was the reaction of Derry manager Damian McErlain after he watched Clifford outscore his entire team over the hour – he got 4-04 of a 6-17 total. Derry managed eight points.
"He got the goal after 17 seconds which was an early blow for us. David is just exceptional – he has the physique of a man and it was like asking a 17-year-old to mark an experienced senior."
Clifford also burned a Derry team in the 2016 Hogan Cup final, the secondary school blue riband, taking man of the match as his St Brendan's beat St Pat's, Maghera.
There were two burning questions as he finished up at minor – could Kerry hang on to him in the face of intense interest from AFL clubs in Australia, and, if yes, would he go straight into manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s senior set-up?
The answer to the first was – no need to worry. According to those close to the family, there was never a danger of him leaving. His dream is to wear the green and gold and to win All-Irelands.
The answer to the second question was less straightforward and many people, his now-team mate Paul Geaney included, felt he may benefit for a season left to concentrate at the new Under-20 grade.
His third! @Kerry_Official's David Clifford put in a Man of the Match display in the @ElectricIreland All-Ireland Minor Final yesterday! pic.twitter.com/yp6jEp3ChK
— The GAA (@officialgaa) September 18, 2017
Others, including Kerry legend Colm Cooper and Donegal All-Ireland winning captain Michael Murphy, a man who played senior inter-county at 17 years old, thought he was a ready-made senior.
"He's shown it for the last three years. He's left-footed, he's right-footed. He's putting up huge scores and he's playing senior championship now down in Kerry," noted the Gooch at the time.
"Everyone seems to be afraid of this guy and with good reason too. He's not afraid to get physical and he knows where the goal is." High praise indeed from one of the game’s greats.
Under new GAA rules in force this year, a player who appears in their county’s match-day 26 for senior championship cannot play at underage.
Fitzmaurice didn’t fancy waithing around. Clifford's highlights reel was already ridiculous and he proved that he can do it any way necessary - winning it in the air, on the ground, soloing, bouncing and kicking off left and right, scoring and creating. He's pacy too, in case you were wondering.
He was brought into the senior squad at the earliest possible opportunity and made his debut in the first League game of the 2018 season against Donegal. He looked comfortable with the step up.
While he may still have some development ahead of him physically, he was able for the harder hits and increased aggression. His footballing ability and reading of the game more than stood up to scrutiny.
The worry was that he could suffer in the congested GAA calendar at the start of the year and at a stage he was being asked to turn out twice a week between county and college, where he played Sigerson Cup with Tralee It.
But a path was navigated through these choppy waters and now, on Sunday, he’ll make his Munster Championship debut for Kerry – the next landmark along a road that looks set to take him to the very top.
In his newspaper column Darragh Ó Sé, never a man to talk his own county’s chances up too highly, worried about the number of new faces that were being asked to take over the manning of the ship from experienced players.
It’s true that Fitzmaurice probably started his overhaul a season late and that the new crop of Kerry players may take a campaign or two to find their feet as a unit at the pointy end of the game.
But their fans probably don’t have too many fears about Clifford, who will make his debut in alongside Paul Geaney and James O’Donoghue. That’s the sort of inside forward line that gives full-backs sleepless nights.
