David Clifford: 'You have to go out and prove that they are wrong'
The wrongs of 2023 and 2024 have been righted and the doubters have been proven wrong, after delivering their best performance of the season.
It's his second All-Ireland triumph. Jack O'Connor's fifth as manager, perhaps his sweetest of all.
"We won the All-Ireland in 2022 with a lot of that team, and you can fall into the trap thinking that it's going to happen every year," Clifford said post-match on RTÉ. "Personally, dealing with the disappointment of 2023, and then obviously, last year losing out to Armagh so, we put a massive emphasis on getting back here this year.
"Without ever mentioning the All-Ireland, though, one performance at a time is what we said, we tried to stick to it, and we had to re-evaluate after the Meath game, but we'd be massively proud of how we came back after that Meath game, to be honest.
His older brother Paudie had mentioned post-match that Kerry had been disrespected by the "one-man-team" talkin 2025. It's a sentiment shared by David.
"Absolutely, look, I don't think anyone goes out to read articles, but they get to you, to be honest. You get sent something or someone mentions something to you. No one likes it, but it's no good either feeling sorry for yourself, 'oh why are they saying that about us?'. You have to go out and prove that they are wrong.
"As good as our last two performances were, if we didn't get over the line today it would have been all for nothing, so we're just delighted we did."
Asked whether it was his side's best performance of the year, Clifford referenced their ability to navigate a crucial period in the second-half.
"I suppose so. You'd be very proud, I think they got it back to four and put a really big press on our kick-out, and I just remember Paudie getting a point, Gavin White won a break and slipped it to Paudie and he was away. They're huge scores.
"They just give the rest of the team such a lift, so today was probably the best performance, thankfully."
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