Daly blasts newspaper over claims he was going to resign

CLARE manager Anthony Daly, whose sideline ban for the All-Ireland senior hurling semi-final on Sunday week against Cork was lifted yesterday on appeal, has reacted angrily to a newspaper report in Tuesday's Clare People.

The report claims that he had threatened to resign if two club senior championship games fixed for last Wednesday evening went ahead.

In an interview with journalist Gerry McInerney, a Clare star of the late 70's/early 80's, published on the front page of yesterday's Clare Champion, Daly rubbished reports that he had strong-armed the County Board to get his way.

"At no stage did I put a gun to the head of the County Board by demanding that the games be cancelled or else I was walking out (as was claimed in that article).

"I didn't call their bluff on anything, and to say so is absolute rubbish. Perhaps it was a case of the reporter not letting the truth get in the way of a good story," Daly told McInerney.

He then went on to deny that, as was further suggested in the Clare People report, he was unavailable for comment. "One missed call showing up on my mobile, no message left on my voicemail, doesn't constitute being unavailable for comment," he blasted.

Given that these were two high-profile games, involving several high-profile members of the team and several more from the panel, Daly did not deny that he was unhappy with the Fixtures Board.

"I appealed to them to have another look at the situation. We were through to an All-Ireland semi-final against Cork, we needed a clear run at it, and I had scheduled training sessions for Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

"In terms of training, we couldn't do what we wanted to do if the games went ahead, fellas would have had hard championship games, we wouldn't really have been able to have the meaningful training sessions we needed, hardly the ideal situation a couple of weeks before such an important match. That was the extent of my consultations."

Finally, Daly refuted the 'resignation threat' suggestion: "At no stage did I threaten to resign, why would I want to walk away from the team I had been working with since September 2003, a team that's in the All-Ireland semi-final. That was never going to happen. The threat of resignation was pure gossip, pub-talk."

Contacted for comment last night, county secretary Pat Fitzgerald, through whom Daly negotiated with the Fixtures Committee, pointed to Daly's Clare Champion rebuttal.

He did, however, offer comment on Daly's sideline reprieve: "It's a huge relief for Clare, we're delighted the ban is lifted. It's very important for our county, going into an All-Ireland semi-final against the reigning champions, that the manager should be on the sideline, with direct access to his players."