Nineteen players in Davy’s living room with Mi Wadi and biscuits...

Yesterday morning in Dublin’s Clyde Court Hotel, Davy Fitzgerald sat down with a handful of journalists to discuss Clare’s triumph. So frank and revealing were his words over those 18 minutes or so, we’ve run the transcript of the interview almost in its entirety.

Question: What does it feel like this morning?

Davy Fitzgerald: “I suppose it still has not sunk in, but it is one of immense satisfaction. I am still the same. I am still so thrilled for the lads. I didn’t touch a drop (of alcohol) because I just wanted to soak in the atmosphere and just watched the rest of them and to see them the way they were is fantastic because they have had some tough times. In fairness, we won a lot of our matches but the public heaped expectation, which is tough, when we lost games and we expect a lot of ourselves so just to see them the way they were last night was brilliant.”