Davy almost lost desire in painful Déise days

Davy Fitzgerald’s four-year tenure as Waterford boss caused him to question his desire for inter-county management.

Fitzgerald revealed how he collapsed on the dressing room floor following Waterford’s All-Ireland final hammering to Kilkenny back in 2008. Added to the 23-point annihilation inflicted by Brian Cody’s outfit, Fitzgerald pointed to the 2011 Munster final defeat at the hands of Tipperary as one of the darkest afternoons during his spell in charge.

Moreover, the All-Ireland winning manager claimed he was struck three times, once to the head, walking back to the dressing room at Páirc Uí Chaoimh following the Déise’s 7-19 to 0-19 drubbing to Tipperary.

In the aftermath of both losses, Fitzgerald questioned why he was putting himself under such pressure and self-inflicting almost unbearable mental strain.

“There were 82,000 people at the game in 2008 and I remember with eight or nine minutes to go looking up at the scoreboard and we were down something like 25 points.

“I was feeling so embarrassed it was unreal, that I had let the lads down, I had let the team down, I hadn’t prepared them properly,” he recalled.

“I remember going into the dressing room afterwards and absolutely falling to my knees in pieces. My dad and Liam O’Dowd were the only two that were there, the team had gone out and I was asking myself the questions what are you after doing to yourself, what’s the story?

“When Tipperary beat us then in 2011 I got hit three times coming off the field, pucked in the chest, pucked in the arm. I got a swipe going into the dressing room, had a fella try and break into the dressing room. It was my entire fault so it was, according to the fans.”

Fitzgerald asked his Waterford players to abstain from drink the night of their provincial final mauling so they could “feel the hurt of defeat”.

The manager, meanwhile, refused to go to bed and arrived in Dungarvan the following morning at 6.15am, almost two hours before their training session was due to commence.

“Drink will disguise a lot of things if you want it to. If you want to hide from the truth you will go out and have a few pints, your friends will tell you what you want to hear. My logic was I wanted them to go home and feel the hurt.

“I didn’t go to bed that night, Liam O’Dowd stayed with me and left at quarter past five. When I was sitting in the car at quarter past six looking in at the pitch in Dungarvan I remember saying to myself, ‘what are you doing Davy, why are you putting yourself under this pressure, why do this to yourself?’

“After a few hours I stopped feeling sorry for myself, there are ups and downs in everything you do in life and you have to get on with it.

“People talk about the highs and lows in sport, I am a great man in Clare now but a couple of months and one or two defeats they will be at my throat again.”

Though only 42, Fitzgerald has been patrolling the sideline for 24 years and admitted his style of management has evolved no end since first getting involved with his native Sixmilebridge.

Central to his managerial success to date, he claimed, was a decision to stop talking down to players and instead employ the correct means of communication.

“I started managing at 18-years of age and I was cocky enough to think I knew it all, but for the first six years I won nothing.

“I may have been good at training, but how I dealt with people and got my message across may not always have been the best.

“I was lucky enough to win a minor and U21 with Sixmilebridge because the players were playing for me.

“I was treating them right. I wasn’t talking down to them, I was talking to them.

“In 2004 I coached Ennistymon to win a junior championship. We had been beaten in the two previous finals and I couldn’t figure out why they weren’t performing on the big day. When we reached a third final I figured out I was putting them under too much pressure.

“On the day of the third final I brought in an armchair and CD player into the dressing room. When they arrived in I was sitting with my legs up, the Wolfe Tones were playing. They asked what was going on and I replied that whatever happens today happens. We are going to throw caution to the wind.

“We won the game by 13 points.”