AS GOOD AN attacker as David Clifford is, he may even be a better defender.

His defensive screen is certainly up throughout the course of a 20-or-so-minute interview to mark the launch of football championship sponsor SuperValu’s Real Nourishment campaign.

The Kerry maestro is far from rude but ask him any question that could potentially lead to a juicy headline and he’s quick to shut it down.

Like an enquiry around the apparent muscle strain suffered by Tom O’Sullivan during last weekend’s Munster SFC semi-final win over Clare.

“I’m not sure, I suppose he probably had his scans and all that,” shrugged Clifford. “We’ll be back in training tonight so I suppose we’ll find out. But I haven’t a clue, to be honest.”

And speaking of defensive screens, what about the tactic Kerry are apparently employing to free up more space for forwards such as Clifford? Like against Clare when he was carefully marked by Ikem Ugwueru but got his shot away for his goal thanks to a timely screen-bump-block on Igwueru by another Kerry forward?

“I’m not sure,” responded Clifford when asked if it’s a tactic to get between him and limpet-like man-markers. “It’s funny, I think sometimes coaches can get too much credit. No-one has ever really mentioned anything about that, it just kind of happens.”

Really? But it looks like a clear tactical ploy, something Jim McGuinness even referenced after the League final.

“Yeah, possibly, I suppose there’s an onus on…well, who is the onus on, is it on the player? Are you going to move out of the way, or does the defender have to move out of the way? I’m not really sure what else you’re meant to do if people get that close together,” said the reigning player of the year.

Clifford certainly isn’t going to be offering up any cheap headlines for Munster SFC final opponents Cork, or anyone else. That same expression that he has been exhibiting on the field for Kerry for almost nine seasons now isn’t quite there in a mid-Championship roundtable with journalists. Nor would you blame him. His is a life of constantly attempting to play down hype, expectation and, sometimes, carnival, around him.

What about Jack O’Connor’s suggestion that Kerry were ‘undercooked’ at the weekend, just not quite there at the peak of their powers yet?

“I can’t be using undercooked as an excuse really, I’ve played most games,” replied Clifford.

But as a team, which is seemingly how O’Connor meant it.

“Possibly, I suppose,” shrugged Clifford again. “You might say we haven’t played a whole pile of football with everyone available. But look, I think most teams would probably say that. I’m not sure.”

Kerry’s absentee list is a big talking point at the moment. Aside from the tweak apparently suffered by O’Sullivan in Ennis, they were already missing Shane Ryan, Brian Ó Beaglaoich, Paul Murphy, Joe O’Connor, Seán O’Shea, Dylan Geaney and Graham O’Sullivan. Gavin White and David’s brother, Paudie, are just back.

“I’d say we’ll probably have what we had against Clare, against Cork,” offered Clifford.

Former Kerry star Paul Galvin described it as an ‘epidemic’ of injuries earlier in the League, not just in Kerry but across the country with teams like Galway, Monaghan and Kildare also left decimated.

Is it just bad luck?

“I genuinely don’t know,” replied Clifford. “I suppose there’s people more qualified than me that would be able to say. The distances covered (in games) seems to be fairly similar than they always were.

“I don’t know, is there more collisions? Possibly, I don’t really know. Bit of bad luck, and then I suppose you’re always hoping you’ll get that bit of luck coming back to you.”

Galvin offered another take on the injury situation at the weekend, drawing a link in Kerry and beyond between those who are currently injured and those who went deep into the county, provincial and All-Ireland championships with their clubs last autumn and winter.

Kerry, of course, enjoyed a clean sweep of All-Ireland junior, intermediate and senior club title wins.

“That possibly is a thing,” said Clifford. “But I know they would have taken big breaks after their respective championships. So that toll, I would say, might be more mental than physical.”

Clifford has been through that club/county ringer himself in recent years with Fossa, Kerry and, at times, East Kerry.

He has been almost ever present so far this season with Kerry, only failing to feature once in the League.

“I suppose I was available, so I played,” he reasoned. “That was the long and short of it, really. You can be trying to take a break every year and stuff like that. What was I going to say to Jack, ‘I need another break?!’”

On the prospect of a first Munster final against Cork since 2021, Clifford was enthused by the prospect.

“Definitely, yeah,” said the schoolteacher. “Obviously we played Clare in the last few finals. But I’m really looking forward to it now, it’s going to be a great test.”

There are a couple of other areas of interest around the phenomenon that is Clifford, like how the ending to games and the use of the clock and hooter was altered, seemingly as a result of the play he was involved in at the end of the first half in last year’s All-Ireland final.

“You could see some scores now that you’d never seen because if there’s 20 seconds on the clock, you kind of have to throw the boot at it,” said the two-time All-Ireland winner. “There could actually be a few great scores as the summer goes on. You can just imagine a buzzer-beater type score. Obviously that’s the idea they were going for. I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about it, to be honest.”

He has his own clothing range now too having teamed up with McKeever.

“McKeever came to me with the idea,” he explained. “It was a good few years ago now, and I kind of put it off and put it off and then they came to me again and I just…look, obviously it was going to be a kind of a…you were taking a chance in the sense that, how was it going to look? I’d be conscious of not wanting to appear like, ‘Who does this fella think he is?’ kind of stuff.

“But it was also probably getting to the stage where it was being done (without consent), and there were jerseys appearing that I’d nothing to do with. So this was probably just a way of kind of, let’s say regulating that and obviously the fact that they sold well was probably a nice addition so you were probably justified in making the decision.”