It’s my job to lower beloved Banner, says emotional Fitz

AN EMOTIONAL Waterford boss Davy Fitzgerald insists “he has a job to do” in plotting the downfall of his beloved Clare next week in the Munster SHC semi final.

“I played for Clare for 20 years, that can never go away, but I have a job to do for Waterford and the people of Waterford expect me to do it.

“I think people know how I was for Clare for a long time, but I think people appreciate if you have a job to do you have to do it to the best of your ability,” he told Setanta Sports.

“All I will say is that if Clare beat us I will wish them nothing but luck and if it’s the other way, I hope that it will be reciprocated.”

The former All-Star goalkeeper struggled to hold back the tears when he recalled Clare’s historic Munster SHC final success in 1995.

“The best moment I ever had was that seven or eight minutes after the match ended.

“My dad (Pat, who’s the Clare county secretary), who wouldn’t be emotional, lifted me up and I could see the tears in his eyes. And I got to see so many Clare people and players of the past, they were in a state, crying. To me, that’s what hurling is about.”

Recalling the first time he met the Waterford players after they had ousted Justin McCarthy as manager, Fitzgerald said: “What happened with Justin can happen with any team. Player power is funny now and we’ve seen that over the last few years. You are not going to keep everyone happy; I think the most important thing is that you try to treat everyone the same and you try to be as honest as you can.

“It was a fair ordeal the first morning I went into the dressing-room. I’ll never forget it. I had nerves in my stomach. I’d say those guys were interested to see what I was about. We had a five-minute chat that first day so they would know where I was coming from and they would have no doubt that they had my loyalty and they had my honesty.

“I did say to them that not all of them would like everything I did because if there were hard decisions to be made with older players or younger players, I was going to make them. And certainly I did ruffle a few feathers, but everything was done for the right reasons; for the team.”