Ryan recalls Fitzy’s timeout

Like Joe Kernan smashing his All-Ireland losers’ medal off the Croke Park dressing-room wall in 2002, it will go down as one of the iconic managerial interventions.

Colin Ryan looks back now on Davy Fitzgerald’s decision to invite all the Clare players back to his homeafter losing the Munster semi-final to Cork last June and has mixed feelings.

After going on to win the All-Ireland title, at Cork’s expense, Fitzgerald’s revelation he fed and watered the players with MiWadi and biscuits in his living room has entered hurling folklore.

In a season of firsts and dramatic developments, it is just one more thing that All-Ireland-winning forward Ryan will mull over in the quieter moments of the winter period.

“Looking back on it, I think people made a bit more of it than it actually was,” suggested Ryan. “It was at a time when we hadn’t done ourselves justice in the Cork game.

“Rather than let it linger, it was probably the right thing to do to meet up, have the chat pretty quickly and get it out of our systems so we could move on.

“If we had left it to the following Thursday, say, it would have been at the lads all week. The fact that we got it out of the way so quickly was the thing.

“Davy is brilliant, to invite us to his home, like, he didn’t need to do that for us to realise we were a family unit, that we were all in it together. But he still did it. It just added that extra touch and we got the result out of our system and moved on from there.”

From there to eternity. Next up is the quest for hurling immortality and back-to-back All-Ireland titles, putting this Clare team in the same sort of elite group as teams like Kilkenny and Cork from the last decade. Given his age — he will be 26 next year — placed ball expert Ryan should be able to handle it all but it remains to be seen if Clare’s younger brigade can deal with the expectation and the hype.

Already there’s been a book opened on who Shane O’Donnell’s next girlfriend may be, for example.

It’s the sort of stuff that can easily derail a team’s momentum.

“There are loads of different reasons why a team mightn’t kick on,” said Ryan. “I suppose it’s very hard to put your finger on one exact point. Maybe those teams of the past who have regrets about not winning more actually did everything they could and other teams just pipped them.

“All I know is we’ll be trying to improve and if we can improve and a team beats us, then maybe they just got there quicker than us, things worked out on the day for them. But we’ll be leaving no stone unturned to keep one step ahead of the game.”

For now though, the party continues.

There is a hunger around Clare to get up close and personal with their heroes at various functions and events though Ryan has been taken back by how interested they are in one particular visitor, Liam MacCarthy.

“Every time you come into a room and bring Liam in and put him down on a table, you become secondary or tertiary to what’s going on,” smiled Ryan. “I think it’s the sheer excitement of the people seeing it. For so many of them it’s the first time they’ve been able to hold onto it and to see that reaction from people is always nice.”

It’s over a month now since Ryan first got his own hands on that most precious piece of silverware. He reckons he could go the rest of his life without matching that initial feeling of elation or, to be more precise, relief.

“At these functions, people ask, ‘how enjoyable was it at the end?’”revealed Ryan. “I think any player will give you the same answer; at that instant it is just sheer relief that all the work you have done and everything you’ve put in has paid off.

“You’ve been doing it for something you’ve wanted to get all of your life and you’ve done it.

“After that, the next half hour becomes the most enjoyable because you are in a family unit that you want to be in.

“You know the lads have put in all the work just the same as you have put in. It’s very special. Then when you bring it down the line another bit, and meet your family and parents for the first time, stuff like that nearly becomes nicer again.”

* Colin Ryan was speaking at the launch of the M Donnelly wheelchair hurling interprovincial tournament which takes place in Athlone IT on Saturday at 11.30am.