Fitzgerald and Wexford braced for a visit to Clare

Maybe it was with this Sunday’s trip to Ennis in mind that Davy Fitzgerald let rip at his Wexford players during the second water break last weekend.

Sure, they were beating Laois but a sluggish third-quarter display bugged Fitzgerald whose admonishing words echoed throughout an empty ground.

“You think that’s f*****g acceptable?” was the gist of the rant, which clearly did the trick because Wexford outscored Laois by 2-8 to 0-3 from there on, winning by 19 points.

For all kinds of reasons, a sustained performance will be required against his native Clare this weekend. Firstly, Clare will surely feel they have to respond after losing surprisingly to Antrim.

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Then there’s the revenge factor; Clare dumping Wexford out of last year’s championship. And, of course, there is the Davy factor. Where to begin with that one. Clare’s All-Ireland-winning manager in 2013, surplus to requirements three years later.

More recently, there has been a slew of reports regarding divisions, entrenched camps and disharmony within Clare hurling. Davy’s father, Pat, is the county’s long-time secretary and their club Sixmilebridge raised the issue earlier this year of “sustained personal abuse” of the two Fitzgeralds, both “online and in person”.

“I think you know my story on that,” said Fitzgerald, speaking at the Marie Keating Foundation’s Give Bladder Cancer the Red Card event.

“I’d prefer not to comment on it because no matter whether you say good or bad, you’re going to be taken up in a particular way and do you know what? I have no interest in it.

“There’s great people in Clare, that’s all I’ll say to you, really good. We’ll just let it play out whatever it is. That’s the way I look at it and I’m not going to get involved in anything that’s been said.”

What Fitzgerald can say with relative certainty is that Clare will throw the kitchen sink at Wexford on Sunday. Because they generally do.

“Any time over the last few years we’ve played Clare, they absolutely rise it unreal playing Wexford,” he noted.

Fitzgerald’s message then will be a simple one, that they need to be on it for 70-plus minutes. That they weren’t when the teams met in last year’s championship and it cost them. It’s why Fitzgerald was so piqued by his players dropping down a gear against Laois early in the second half last weekend.

“For Wexford to compete they have to be ferocious in their work rate and we weren’t for that 15 minutes,” he said. “So that was my point.”

Club fields

Fitzgerald has previously spoken about his team perhaps leaving their best form on the club fields around Wexford last summer. By autumn and winter they were jaded, turning in tackle counts in the 40s for the Championship games against Galway and Clare when typically it had been “between 95 and 105” per game.

His gut feeling was that the players hadn’t done themselves justice and that he couldn’t walk away.

“We actually had a very good league in 2020, the only thing that didn’t finish right for us were the last two games; we weren’t competitive,” he said.

“I like to be competitive, whatever else, I like to be competitive. That’s important to me. I thought about it for the night after playing Clare, I was back in Lahinch that night after Clare beating us, stayed back there with my wife Sharon and spent a good lot of the night awake. I had my decision made [to stay] by early the next morning.”

Despite how 2020 finished up, Fitzgerald described managing Wexford as his most enjoyable period in hurling. He’s optimistic about this season too though is frustrated that the new advantage rule may slow down games in general and make them less enjoyable to watch.

Referees have been ordered to only play advantage in two situations – if a goal is on or if the fouled player “is clear and has time and space” – and the fear is that there’ll be more frees in games.

“Don’t let it progress on into the year,” urged Fitzgerald.

“There is no point. Everybody knows. I think the people would be better just to admit that we tried it, it didn’t work. Let’s just go back. Maybe leave it a week or two again but in my own mind, I am nearly close to 100 per cent saying that this isn’t going to work.”

* To mark Bladder Cancer Awareness Month this May, Davy Fitzgerald has teamed up with the Marie Keating Foundation and Roche Products (Ireland) Ltd. to ‘Give Bladder Cancer the Red Card’. The awareness campaign aims to encourage men – who are three times more likely to be diagnosed than women – to know the warning signs such as blood in the urine, and get help if needed.

See www.mariekeating.ie/redcard for info.