David Clifford

No but multiple POTY will certainly give him a nudge.

For me Maurice Fitzgerald is the best I have seen. He was obviously brilliant but his sideline ball when needed in Thurles against the Dubs has never been bettered as a score for me.

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There was no one like Maurice. He was a God before that point, and continued well after it too. The sight of him being chaired off fields in South Kerry will alway be iconic. Him and Mick O Connell just had it. Men of their people, and no other fuss about it.

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They probably will and he will deserve to be called the GOAT if that happens

A nice score but desperately over rated. It was a free shot, a big hoof out of the hands with a big wind behind him.

It wouldn’t even be that close to the top of the list of the greatest late equalisers from free kicks. Eamon McEneaney, Larry Tompkins and Derek Duggan are all comfortably ahead.

Tommy/Tom Carr made a show of himself that day

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He hit it with the outside of his boot.

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Pig. Grunt.

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That one anyway was central.

He didn’t. He hit it with his instep, on the sweet spot, using the follow through technique you use to get maxmium length. The wind brought it back in. It was the same technique he used for the point at the end of the final against Mayo in 1997. You wouldn’t get that length using an outside of the boot strike and outside of the boot strikes start off at a higher trajectory. Peter Canavan was a true outside of the boot striker with some of his banana free kicks like one against Derry in 2003 and his last point against Dublin in the 1995 final.

Somebody please log this post in the TFK Experts thread.

He had to judge the wind in order for it to come back in and go over.

I had a look at the Tompkins and McEneamy kicks there. Excellent kicks granted but central.

Fitzgerald’s greatest score by far was his goal against Armagh. It’s one of very few important goals I recall him scoring. I think he got one against Cork in 1998 at an important stage but apart that I can’t think of anything.

Colm Cooper’s list of great goals on the other hand is as long as your arm.

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You really should know better here

A genius – and the arch genius score, as you say.

But is Matt Coonor not the finest footballer of the ‘abundant TV footage’ era? And maybe by a bit of distance?

Seems that way to me. And he was gone at 24/25.

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Connor was before my time so I can’t comment.

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Was that the one he hung up in the air and let the gale carry it over ?:crazy_face:

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Fitzgerald is the best I have seen out of Kerry in my lifetime

what seperates him from Clifford, Gooch et al, is that he wore every jersey from 8 to 15 for kerry , played on shite Kerry teams, could kick\score a 45 off the ground with both right and left foot. I couldnt envisage Clifford or Gooch playing midfield or kicking\scoring 45s off the ground on left and right

From footage Matt Connor was just class personified, such skills and elegance on the ball

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Fitzgerald definitely SLIGHTLY overrated. What were his great inter county performances? He was also a sub in 2000 when he was only around 30.

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The hardest thing to do in proper field sports is to be a mercurial scoring and playmaking forward who can devastate a team in five seconds with a swivel of the hips or a drop of the shoulder or a sudden change of pace. This runs across all proper field sports (ie. not including American football/baseball).

The greatest exponents of this are pretty much always handy sized lads, not big lads anyway.

Maradona, Messi, DJ Carey, David Campese.

In Gaelic Football, Ja Fallon, Dermo, Ray McCarron, Matt Connor, Mugsy,
Colm Cooper and most of all Peter Canavan.

Maurice Fitzgerald was a sort of Gaelic football equivalent of Henry Shefflin. Extremely good at all the basics.

But he didn’t have that mercurial extra that Canavan and Gooch had.

A great little one will always beat a very good big one. The greatest ones are the great little ones.

you can start with the 1988 Munster Football Final when he was 18 and he kicked truck load of points on a beaten Kerry team, 1997 all ireland final, Kerry wouldnt have been within an asses roar of the 2000 all ireland title without his contributions off the bench v Armagh ( draw and replay) and Galway( draw and replay).

basically Kerry would have had no all ireland in near 20 years only for him ( be in Cork senior hurlers territory)

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