Frustrated Fitzgerald tries to keep a lid on it but . . . .

NO FIRE and brimstones. Not at first. Davy Fitzgerald is a man who can take his beating on the chin. No better man.

Yet, as the Clare manager emerges from the dressingroom with his eyes dancing and crosses his arms across his chest, you just know that the mind is racing at a million miles an hour and that all of the words are unlikely to stay inside his head.

They don’t, and although Fitzgerald is the first to put his hands up and admit that Kilkenny deserved to win – “Can I take my beating? 100 per cent. Kilkenny were a better team, 100 per cent, no qualms,” he says – but a number of decisions which led up to the game’s only goal early in the second-half have left him very perplexed.

Fitzgerald felt the original sideline ball which started the move that led to Matthew Ruth’s goal should have been Clare’s in the first place. It was what happened afterwards, when the ball came into Eoin Larkin’s hands, that left him aggrieved and salt was rubbed in when the ball eventually was finished to the net by a player who, Fitzgerald felt, was right on top of his goalkeeper in the square.

“How come it’s always the Clares that get those (decisions) against us?” wonder Fitzgerald.

“I am fairly certain he (Larkin) turned three times with the ball and your man (Ruth) was inside on Patrick Kelly when he made the save . . . we got on to (referee) Alan Kelly a few times and you might as well be talking to the wall. I am not happy about them decisions. They have to be honest and fair. It was plain for everyone to see.

“Kilkenny were the better team. There is no doubt about that. No qualms. No qualms. But that goal killed the game as a contest and it came from a sideline ball and (then) the amount of turns. We cannot have that. Are referees afraid to make a mistake when it is the big teams at stake? Are they afraid they won’t get a bigger match or stuff like that?”

Fitzgerald revealed he had actually tried to approach the referee at half-time. “I wanted to ask him a question. I said, ‘Alan, can I have a minute?’ And he ignored me as if I was dirt. I wanted to question one thing and I wasn’t allowed and I couldn’t be bothered going after the game.

“It is just frustrating. We train as hard (as anyone) and three of my players came to me afterwards and said, ‘Is this right? We are busting our ass (training) and it seems like we’re never going to get the rub of the green when we’re playing the likes of them. They’re fair frustrated and I’m frustrated.

“We know we wouldn’t have beaten Kilkenny, but it might have been a bit closer if that goal hadn’t gone in at that time. That goal absolutely put us behind the cosh. He had to turn two or three times and if he has to turn he has to have the ball in his hand.

“So, that’s annoying. I will make a call about it tomorrow. I’ll probably get reported for going 20 yards onto the field to ask about it. What way would you be if you’re on the sideline and you see that happening to your team and it is ignored?

“Them one or two calls has to be fair across the board.”

As for Brian Cody? Job done.

“I suppose the goal we got, handy enough in the second half, gave us that bit of breathing space. It was never easy at any stage. It was a serious challenge for us.”