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Irish Daily Mirror

David Clifford relationship with girlfriend Shauna, son Oigi and day job

It was the year 2018 when David Clifford burst onto the inter-county scene, and since making his debut for Kerry, he's been hailed as "a once in a generation" talent, with comparisons drawn to international icons like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan. These accolades, coupled with his on-field success, including an All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, five Munster titles, and three National Leagues, hold immense value for the 26-year-old. Yet, he remains humble and grounded. His list of individual honors includes the Young Footballer of the Year award in 2018 and the Footballer of the Year award in both 2022 and 2023. In an interview with RSVP Live. the Fossa clubman delved into the highs and lows of his sporting career, life beyond GAA with his girlfriend Shauna O'Connor and their three-and-a-half year old son Óigí, and the importance of finding balance. There was a viral picture of you with Kerry performance coach Tony Griffin after losing the All-Ireland Football Final against Dublin. Can you recall how you felt in that moment? There was a lot of disappointment and regret, I suppose. Croke Park is the best place to be when you win and the worst place to be when you lose. To have somebody like Tony and to have such close friends on the team shows how lucky you are. You survive through the bad days together. You must move on from it too, your life can't revolve around whether you win or lose a game. It would make for a long career for you, because you're going to have more losses than wins. Is it hard not to overthink things? We're all guilty of that. You need to be well settled off the field and have plenty going on away from sport. It's very easy to think about football all the time, but then there would be no enjoyment in it anymore. Off the field, for you, is it hard to get the balance right? It can be at times. The people around us make a lot of sacrifices so we can go out and train so many evenings a week. I try to be settled and relaxed, and I try to enjoy my life as much as I can. That allows me to put everything into the game. Does your son Óigí recognise you on TV and know what the green and gold jersey means? Yeah, he's gone mad for sport at the moment. He's wearing jerseys and he loves it. But he's not too happy with me going out training because I'm going to be gone for a couple of hours. He loves coming along with me to watch the Fossa games at the weekend. He's great craic. Does that add an extra level of enjoyment for you, seeing him loving it as well? I hadn't thought about it like that until you said it. He's also copying the celebrations of the soccer players he sees. He's getting to that age now where I've an extra reason to go out there and play. Óigí is clearly gearing up for the All-Ireland! The structure of the championship has changed. The national league, provincial championship, round robin series and knock-out games are condensed into the first seven months of the year. How are you finding it? When you're stuck in the middle of it and you're going to work, training and matches, you don't think about that kind of stuff. It's great to have games and the structure at the moment is great because you've got a game, then a week off and then another game. You're recovering for a week and then preparing for a week. The four or five week gaps in the old system used to be long. I like that element of it. We're getting a lot of good competitive games, and there's very few negatives to that. Kildare legend Johnny Doyle won a club championship at 45 years old last year. Would you like to do something similar? It's hard to know. I want to play for as long as I can anyway. The day you're inside in the full-forward line and some young fella beats you out to the first couple of balls, that's probably when it's time to move on [laughs]. There has been talk of a return to September All-Ireland finals again. What do you think of that? I'm very happy with the split season. From a selfish point of view, as a teacher anyway. Nobody wants to hear about teachers and their holidays, but we get to have a month of summer holidays after the All-Ireland. That's very enjoyable, being able to go away. On the other side of it, when I was in primary school the build-up to an All-Ireland final in September was brilliant. There are pros and cons. What's your own schedule like? Much has been made about how busy you are with Fossa, East Kerry and Kerry. We're very lucky with our three managers, there's no problem if we need breaks here and there. We're conscious that winning doesn't last forever. East Kerry hadn't won the county championship for 20 years and Fossa has never won the junior. We have to milk it while we have it. It's important to get the breaks as well. It's not just tough physically, it's mentally draining as well. You have to deal with the highs and lows and the build-up to games. How do you deal with the pressure of being David Clifford in a football-mad county? The main thing is trying not to think about it like that. I have different targets for myself or different targets for the team. You always hear [Manchester City manager] Pep Guardiola saying that having targets takes the emotion out of the game. As boring as it sounds, that tends to work a lot of the time. You're big into other sports and you're a Celtic fan. How important is that, having interests away from GAA? That's my approach anyway, I try to have interests in other things. For other people, their interests may not be sports. At the moment, it's impossible to keep up with all the sports. You'd nearly want two or three TVs on the go [laughs]. You've been compared to Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan and been called a 'once in a generation' talent. What's that like? There's an uncomfortable nature to it. I learned from my parents to be humble and not to appear arrogant. You don't want to be talking about yourself in that light, you want to let it brush off you. The Pittsburgh Steelers were in Dublin last April. Would you ever try your hand at playing in the NFL? It hasn't really crossed my mind. I'm a relatively safe person in that I'm settled in a job and settled in life. To turn that upside down to try something new isn't something that would appeal to me too much. It's class to see the Irish players that have joined the NFL. We're looking forward to seeing if some of them can get on the pitch. How does it feel to be settled so young? You've made your career in football at an early age, you've a child and a good job. Maybe it will all turn upside down at some stage [jokes]. It's fine, that's just the way things have happened for me. Things fell into place nicely. I'm far from perfect, let that be known. I enjoy life and I feel like I've a great life. I'm very lucky with the people I have around me. You were one of the youngest players when you joined the Kerry panel in 2018 and now you're one of the most experienced in the dressing room. It's hard to believe. A lot of us came into the panel together in 2018 and 2019, so we've gone through the years together. Without even noticing it, we've had some incredible life experiences with trips away and big wins and defeats. Every year before you commit to another season you have to make sure you're still enjoying it – thankfully, I still am. If you finished your career with one All-Ireland win, how would you accept that? You'd like to win the All-Ireland every year, but that's not the reality of it. If I was to retire I wouldn't be going around telling people that I've an All-Ireland medal or don't have an All-Ireland medal. While they're great to win and you do everything in your power to win them, you just have to get over it. Hopefully, that won't be the case! This interview appeared in the July 2024 issue of RSVP Magazine