Free was made for Tony Kelly, says delighted Davy Fitzgerald

Davy Fitzgerald revealed it was his call to appoint Tony Kelly to take the 80 metres-plus free to equalise over Colin Ryan and Conor McGrath.

Newmarket-on-Fergus man Ryan is Clare’s preferred free-taker and had fired over a long-range placed ball in the 59th minute, while McGrath had earlier struck five frees from seven attempts.

However, Fitzgerald made an executive decision to allow Kelly stand over the ball. “I’d have got killed if he didn’t score that point from the free because I changed the free-taker myself. I felt he was on fire, I felt that was one made for him and I asked him to hit it. I don’t know would the other selectors have killed me if it went wide. It was a call, he did it, great man for the big occasion and fair play to him.

“They all played their part. Like, you look at Austin Gleeson and David Fitzgerald out there – I thought the exhibition of fielding out there today was absolutely incredible but David Fitzgerald caught the last one for us that counted and get it off to Tony Kelly, which was immense.

“Delighted, delighted with our guys. I know Derek (McGrath) can’t be disappointed with his team because they gave an unreal contribution out there.”

Fitzgerald hailed his team’s battling qualities having seen them lead for only three minutes in the entirety of the game. “We were in trouble for a lot of that game. We were down three points, four points, five points. It went to six points. It’s hard. I felt we were always chasing today. Like, we conceded a goal inside the first minute. We didn’t get a chance to get our cover back and they had one buried in the back of the net.”

Fitzgerald wouldn’t go into too much detail about why the game was more open than most expected.

“There might have been a bit more space out there. We won’t go into that right now. You’re playing a great team in Waterford. They’re so well drilled. They want to use the ball. Fair play to them. We were trying to see could we get a bit more space.

“But trust me, the space suits them as well. They can pick off scores from any place. Some of the scores they got out there today… I think they’re going to have a massive say this year, I really believe that.

“Maybe I’m a bit biased because I was down there for three years and I absolutely loved my time down there. But I think they’re going to be tough.

“June 5…we’ve seen two unreal battles. God, what more is going to come on June 5? Because we know that they probably say to themselves ‘they beat us by a point. They’re not going to beat us the next day’. We’re going to say to ourselves ‘no matter what, we’re going to have to fight even harder.’ So it’s going to be crazy out there but I’m looking forward to it.”

Fitzgerald reported Oisín O’Brien was a late retirement because of a back spasm.