Davy vows Banner will rise for qualifiers
The Banner men spurned some decent goal scoring opportunities while others went abegging due to poor decision-making and handling errors. And Fitzgerald lamented the lack of ball heading in the direction of full-forward Darach Honan after half-time.
Honan bagged two points in the first half and had Stephen McDonnell in all sorts of bother.
Fitzgerald said: “I thought we should have been more up at half-time with the opportunities we had. Darach Honan was on fire today and if we could have gotten him enough of the ball… In the first half he did damage, but we didn’t get him enough ball in the second half.”
With the wind at their backs in the second half, Cork powered on to a comfortable win. And Fitzgerald conceded there was an air of inevitability about the final result from a long way out.
He explained: “With that wind they were going to get control of ball. We were carrying ball against it but we’d fellas sitting back, getting it, hitting it down, it’s very hard when that’s happening. We kept trying. It was just tough going.”
But Fitzgerald vowed Clare will rise again for the qualifiers — with Dublin, Laois or Kilkenny to come next. He predicted: “They’re a grand bunch, they’ll work hard. You have to think where we’ve come from in a year and a half. Things are probably not the best in Clare for a number of years. We’re back up there competing.
“We weren’t out of it today by any manner of means. We’d a lot of goal chances. That’s there for everyone to see. We didn’t take them. But we’ll just go back, we’ll regroup, we’ll try even harder and we’ll come back even harder.”
And Fitzgerald insisted the race for All-Ireland glory is there for any team willing to “grab” the opportunity.
He added: “I’ve said it before — the Championship this year and next year are going to be as open as they have been for a long time. It’s probably waiting for someone to grab it.
“You’d like to think that we could eventually aspire to getting up there. If you look at the average age of our team, it’s fairly young and it’s going to take a bit of time to mature.”
