Disgruntled Davy feels hard done by but admits Rebels deserved win

Clare manager Davy Fitzgerald has called for certain bodies within the GAA to be investigated.

Fitzgerald was disgusted by James McGrath’s officiating of yesterday’s tie, refusing to elaborate, however, on whether or not he was making reference to the refereeing branch of the association when claiming “one or two bodies need to be looked into”.

Earlier this year the All-Ireland-winning boss said Clare were targeted by referees throughout the league solely because of their newly acclaimed status.

Asked if Clare were disappointed with McGrath’s performance, Fitzgerald hung his head. “Are you not going to answer that question?” queried one reporter.

“I don’t need to. I don’t need to,” he replied. “Cork seemed to get a few soft frees which put them ahead early on. Their two goals came from frees. We were finding it a small bit harder to get frees,” he continued.

“The second goal came off Aidan Walsh fielding a ball he shouldn’t have got. He should not have been able to field a ball the way he did, got it in and I suppose James McGrath couldn’t wait to blow the whistle then to give them a penalty. Cork won but I am pointing out the obvious things to you as well, so I am.

“I am not going to hide behind any issues. At the end of the day Cork were better on the field of play, so they were. It doesn’t matter about decisions or lack of decisions, they were the better team today and I really feel that, but there are some things that badly need to be looked into in the GAA and one or two bodies need to be looked into.

“Listen, I will deal with this in my own way. There is something I might speak about at the end of the year. There is something that is going to have to be looked at because I knew something was going to happen today before the game even happened. If you know that going into a game you are wasting your time.”

Clare suffered from a seven-week lay-off to their last competitive outing and Fitzgerald was in no doubt that Cork’s two games against Waterford were crucial.

“On the day I thought Cork were a better team without a shadow of a doubt, they were a bit more hungrier than we were, a bit zippier so that’s the way it goes. Probably Cork were built up that they were going to come out of that game [Waterford draw] easy enough and no matter who you play you are not going to come out of any game easy.

“They showed a vast improvement the second day. In all fairness to 1B hurling, 1B hurling is 1B hurling and it’s not up to the pace of what 1A is. They needed that game or two to adjust. I thought they were awesome today and fair play to them.

“They were that bit sharper. We got killed in the middle. We tried a few different things to rectify that but I don’t think we rectified them.”

Can the Banner once more regroup through the qualifiers?

“Listen, you can’t take away what the lads have done, but I am worried because there’s been a lot taken out of the lads. There are a few lads think they can play both codes. You can’t do it.

“Lads think that the last six or eight months took a lot out of us. It did take a lot out of us, without a shadow of a doubt, and you can see it there today. I don’t think we were as zippy or fresh as we should be. That’s my honest opinion. We gave away three weeks up to the clubs as well. I think we will struggle in the qualifiers. Last year we had nothing won. We have done a lot of stuff in the last few months. We will struggle.”