JACK IS ACE IN KERRY PACK

All eyes on what O'Connor does next, with even a legend like Clifford on tenterhooks

- Roy CURTIS

PERHAPS it was David Clifford's dreamy Sunday in the company of Oasis that confirmed for Kerry's supreme maker of magic the inestimable value of Croke Park reunions.

Only hours after attending last weekend's gig one where the Gallagher brothers, like David three weeks earlier, were figures of breathtaking boldness holding the great arena in the palm of their hands Clifford was serenading Jack O'Connor with a Kingdom version of a celebrated lyric from the Britpop kings: Because we need each other/We believe in one another.

In that moment, the better part of 350 days out from the 2026 final, next year's All-Ireland campaign might have been pivotally shaped.

If there was a hand holding all the cards on Monday afternoon, it was a 64-year-old one belonging to O'Connor.

Just two months after a loss to Meath left him facing the Star Chamber of Inquisition, Clifford was essentially deeming the manager subjected to so much friendly fire in June irreplaceable, as integral to the Kerry landscape as Killarney's lakes.

Not quite a month after O'Connor intimated the time had come to walk away from his third coming as the compass guiding football's most decorated county, this leader of great accomplishment could turn on his TV to hear the game's cardinal talent and poster boy confirm his ravenous hunger to be reunited with his 2025 commanding officer.

Because we need each other.

We believe in one another.

"Absolutely, absolutely, we'd love him to stay on. So hopefully he might reverse his decision," was Clifford's unequivocal, borderline pleading petition, as he accepted July's Player of the Month award on Monday.

Two months shy of a birthday that will propel him to what was for many years the traditional retirement age, O'Connor's work has never been so acutely in demand.

Clifford's words carry unique power in his home place, that of a forward armed with all the mystique of a natural-born genius.