Coy Fitzgerald refuses to be drawn on Banner emotions

IT was a pairing that was bound to stir up a well of personal emotions but despite 17 championship seasons of service to the Clare senior hurlers, Davy Fitzgerald was focused on his current role as Waterford manager in yesterday’s Munster SHC semi-final in Semple Stadium.

Fitzgerald was reluctant afterwards to talk about the personal dilemma that the game posed for him but he did pay tribute to the spirited nature of the Clareperformance. “I’m not going to comment on how I felt that is my own personal view on it. I’ll continue to work as hard as I can. But those Clare lads won an All-Ireland U21 last year and they did not win it for nothing.

“They won it because they showed guts and the important thing for those boys now is that they have to drive on after that and that is very important. I thought Clare hassled and harried like their lives depended on it. I’m saying it for the last number of months that this was what wasgoing to happen. I read their articles before the game. I knew it meant a lot to them. I think Clare over the last 15 years have never rolled to Waterford. They showed it again today.”

The controversy last week surrounding the venue for the Munster final if Cork and Waterford qualified was anunwelcome interference inthe Déise’s preparations for the Clare challenge yesterday.

Fitzgerald insisted that no one in their camp played any role in that situation, and they paid Clare the utmost respect heading into the match.

“I won’t talk about it. I’ll just tell you the team management had absolutely nothing to do with that. Never once did we want to talk about it or have it said and that is all I will say. We paid Clare the utmost respect and we would never ever do anything like that and you can trust me on that.

“We would not do that in Waterford with our team and our mentors. I don’t know what happened or what the story is but it was nothing to do with us. We looked at Clare today, we never thought about anyone else. They can say what they like. It doesn’t bother us today one way or another. I drummed it into the lads what was going to happen. It was a good thing that I did that.”

FITZGERALD added: “The introduction of Waterford’s experienced players in the second-half paid a handsome dividend.

“Declan Prendergast shot over three points, Seamus Prendergast landed two and Ken McGrath grabbed another. We haven’t a bad bench at all. I can tell you there are lads on that sideline that aren’t happy being there. I don’t really care. We have a good panel there and by God we needed today.

“I think that was a fair entertaining match today. On the other side of it today our guys showed a lot of maturity, they didn’t panic at any stage, they held tough. There was a lot of pressure on there at times. We showed character today, I thought. What did we knock up today, 22 or 23 points. It’s not bad in a day’s hurling.”

Fitzgerald admitted a sense of relief that the occasion of facing his native county is now behind him, but insisted that Waterford will have to step it up for the provincial decider.

“It was a different feeling coming into this. I’m just glad it’s just done now,’’ he said. “I suppose a lot of people will write us off after this. We have to step it up big time. Compared to what we saw last Sunday it was amazing how Cork played and we know we have to step it up.

“We have a lot of things to look at but we have a few weeks to get a bit more work done.

“We were probably written off in 2008 and we’re still around. But we’ll give it a go.

“The next day is the Munster final, we have a team in that and we’re going to try to win it.”