SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND

ROY CURTIS on the magic of AlHreland finals and basking in the glory of Kerry's David Clifford

- Roy CURTIS

SOME 48 hours before the All-Ireland football final and I'm sitting on a stage in a Cusack Stand banqueting hall excavating ancient memories, searching for a way to describe David Clifford's capacity to make his own fantasies.

To my left is Jim Gavin. To my right is Martin McHugh. In my hand is a microphone. In my mind's eye is Michael Jordan.

I rewind. It is March 1995 at Madison Square Garden and, with the wind in his sails, Jordan is conjuring moments that are so outrageously beautiful, so electrifying and unforgettable, that everything else in my world shrivels to nothing.

Gavin has offered a typically astute tactical preview of how Sunday might unfold. McHugh, an All-Ireland winner with Donegal in 1992, has shone a light on how the aura of Jim McGuinness has decanted belief into every corner of Tir Chonaill.

Now, quizzed by MC Paul Collins on how Clifford might inflict himself on the biggest afternoon in Irish sport, my head is full of a night in midtown Manhattan when I watched Jordan contradict the laws of gravity while hitting the Knicks for 55.

I want to talk about genius and how it is the skeleton key that will open the door to anywhere Clifford wishes to go...

You couldn't argue with Jordan or Tiger Woods in their prime, and Clifford, a talent beyond restraint is in my opinion weapon a that under the game's new rules, no mortal coach can hope to decommission.