By John Harrington

Five-time All-Ireland winner, Declan O’Sullivan, has hailed the impact Paudie Clifford has made with the Kerry footballers this year.

O’Sullivan, now Kerry U-20 manager, believes the Fossa club-man has helped develop an exciting new chemistry in the Kerry attack.

“I've been really impressed with Paudie,” said O’Sullivan. “He has impressed in the club scene for the last couple of years. It was just a matter of time when he was going to come onto the senior level.

“There's a lot of great work being done in East Kerry at the moment. They've won a couple of county championships. Paudie, a bit like myself, playing for a club (Fossa) lower down the divisions, even if you are playing well, people say 'Can he do it at the higher level?'

“East Kerry have allowed him to show on a bigger platform in terms of winning county championships that he can do it at a higher level. Obviously at Kerry junior level he's been very impressive as well.

“He's stepped up to the plate in every jump that he's done. He's settled in very well to the Kerry seniors. He's been very impressive.

“The great thing about Paudie is that he matches his ability in terms of kicking and scoring with a real appetite for hard work. He has a good attitude and intensity around the field. You need that when you're playing the likes of Dublin and Mayo.

“You need that ability to get up and down the field. You need to be defensively contributing as well just as much as attacking. Paudie has that.

“Working with Dara Moynihan as well, I think the two of them have a great understanding. If you look at that Kerry forward line, with Paudie, David and Dara Moynihan. There's a strong East Kerry link there so the chemistry is quite good. Kerry are benefiting from that.”

Kerry have an embarrassment of riches in their in-form attack, but no-one is playing better at the moment than centre-forward Seanie O’Shea who was Man of the Match in the Munster Quarter-Final victory over Clare last weekend.

“I'm a big fan of Seanie,” says O’Sullivan. “I was lucky enough to be involved with Jack (O'Connor) at minor level in 2015 when Seanie was a minor.

“We had for a year at U20 level as well before he went into the senior. He's developed his game fantastically well. He has a great attitude, great temperament.

“He's kept developing his game, and he's hungry. You can see his demeanour, his body language is very strong in terms of showing leadership on the field. For such a young, you'd have to be very impressed with his overall game.

“His ability and his kicking and his kicking is not in question. It's there for everybody to see. He has so much more to his overall game that it's so, so impressive. Temperament and leadership skills for such a young fella really stands out.”

Kerry are commonly regarded as the team best equipped to finally dethrone six-in-a-row champions Dublin this year.

The Dubs have lost a lot quality players like Paul Mannion, Michael Darragh MacAuley and Paddy Andrews to retirement since last year’s triumph, but O’Sullivan doesn’t think that gives any hope to the teams trying to chasing them down.

“In normal circumstances, you'd probably say it would, but I think Jim Gavin had been very shrew in his time as manager,” said O’Sullivan.

“He kept introducing players and while it might not have been obvious to the outside people looking in that they needed new players to come in because they were going well, he kept introducing two or three players into the team every year.

“That means the transition that would normally take place, maybe the transition that happened in Kilkenny or the transition that happened previously with the great Kerry team where a lot of the older guys get old together and they leave over the space of one or two years, that doesn't really apply to this Dublin team I think.

“If you look at some of their main leaders now, they are still very young, such as Ciarán Kilkenny, Con O'Callaghan, Brian Fenton. Those type of guys are probably steering the ship now at this stage, so I think they have managed that difficult problem very, very well and I think Jim Gavin will have to be complimented on that.

“I think the loss might be felt more around the general set-up and the standards and the behaviours of the group, you know need some older guys there making sure that the younger fellas coming in know what is required to play for Dublin.

“They will lose something, generally, around the squad and in the mindset of the squad, but on the field, in terms of leadership, I think they are well equipped there.”