Paudie Clifford says the Kerry players “felt very disrespected” before claiming the Sam Maguire Cup with victory over Donegal at Croke Park today.

Clifford was among the Kingdom’s best performers on the day as they saw off the Ulster champions by 1-26 to 0-19 at HQ to clinch their county’s 39th All-Ireland senior football championship title.

Speaking to RTE Sport after the game, the Fossa playmaker said that the talk of Kerry being “a one-man team”, referring to his brother David, had been disrespectful to the group.

“We would have put a lot of pressure on ourselves,” he said. “We would be our own biggest critics but like we did feel disrespected for a long time. A team that were in three of the last four All-Irelands and have won two of the last four, we felt very disrespected.

“Being called a one-man team when you have fellas like Joe O’Connor, fellas like Jason Foley have worked all their lives to play for Kerry – and you’re called a one-man team if you haven’t won every All-Ireland. We felt disrespected, like.” 

The Fossa clubman added: “We knew what Donegal would bring, and we knew it would be an unbelievable work-rate.

“We just said we’d try and pick around them and try and take the right shots. Even though we didn’t really in the first half, we did in the second half. But we have to give massive credit to our midfielders and Shane Ryan.

“We had enough possession to be able to give a few balls away and kick a few scores wide but we still had enough of the ball.”  

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