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18th February 2024
09:31am GMT
8 November 2013; Clare hurler Tony Kelly with his parents Moira and Donal arrive ahead of the GAA GPA All-Star Awards 2013 Sponsored by Opel, at Croke Park, Dublin. Picture credit: Brendan Moran / SPORTSFILE[/caption]
"And once he filled out and got size. His athleticism and his hands, we'd never seen anything like it in some ways," he says.
In the mean-time, Kelly has gone onto win four Clare titles and a Munster with Ballyea. He has added on three more All-Stars too and a National Hurling League, and is widely considered one of the best players in the country.
"There was a crop of them coming up," recalls Griffin.
"Tony's father Donal Kelly would have been training them like Ger Loughnane trained us from when they were 13 or 14.
"Donal just put the right set-up in place from a very early age.
"And he'd be driving back to west Clare to gather up lads and to bring them over to hurl and it's testament to all that hard work."
"I don't think they won féile but that was their ambition.
"So if Clare were playing Kilkenny, Donal would load a bunch of them into a bus and they'd have played O'Loughlin Gaels that morning or whatever.
"I remember bringing a group of 14-year-olds down from Belfast, St Anne's I think it was, and they played our lads and Tony scored like 3-30 against them. The other young lads have never seen anything like it."
Tony Kelly celebrates with his dad Donal after winning a Munster title for Ballyea.
Griffin says it's a regret that he didn't get to hurl longer with Kelly for Ballyea.
"I'd know him really well. I played with him at senior level for the club before I retired.
"I was only saying to my son the other day, I'd love to have played another couple of years with him because it's just such a joy playing with him."
"His reading of the game, where you'd put the ball, you wouldn't even have to show him, he just knew where you were going before you were there."
Griffin, who works as a performance coach with the Kerry footballers, says he still keeps close tabs on the Clare hurlers. He feels that the strength in depth they're building in this League campaign, with the progression of players like Sean Rynne, John Conneally and Shane Meehan, will stand to them towards the latter end of the season.
"When you look at Limerick, they're a lot further on their development than Clare are in some ways.
"They've a bigger bank of players, and that's the case with most counties, but I think this year in particular, Clare are going to close that gap significantly.
"And when you're bringing on a player, 17, 18 or 22 and you're bringing on a player who can do damage, that's maybe something they haven't had the last few years to the same extent that they will this year.
"The big thing for Clare is how they perform when they get to Croke Park, which they haven't done themselves justice in the last few years.
"And it's a big transition. Munster is hard to get through so it goes back to having a depth of a panel so that when you do get there, you're not depending on the same guys. Also Brian has changed his backroom team which usually brings fresh energy to the whole thing."
[caption id="attachment_297934" align="alignnone" width="1300"]
15 January 2024; Former Clare hurler Tony Griffin attends the launch of TG4's award-winning Laochra Gael series at the Light House Cinema in Dublin as the Gaelic sport biography series returns for another season. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile[/caption]
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