Disappointed Fitzgerald pays tribute to Waterford

Davy Fitzgerald didn’t try to hide his disappointment at seeing his charges go down in the opening round of the hurling league but he was at pains to pay tribute to the winners, many of whose players were in the team he managed for four years until the end of 2011.
Asked if the wide count run up by Clare was the reason for the loss, he replied. “No, it’s down to ourselves and we didn’t play well. I think we believed the bull***t that was written in the last week. It paid awful disrespect to Waterford that I think is very unfair considering how many Munster championship winners they have in their team.
“I think our fellas got a bit complacent coming in. We had enough chances and we didn’t win it. Well done to Waterford”.
The Clare boss didn’t have any question about the free that led to the winning point.
“It was a free and we have no complaints about that,” said Fitzgerald.
“He should have blown it up about five seconds earlier but I am not going to say anything about the referee. I thought he did a fairly good job. He was honest. Maybe he could have blown it up a bit earlier but that’s the way things go and we lost by a point. It’s not that we got hammered,” he said.
“We gave them seven points from mistakes. We weren’t as aggressive as we should have been but it’s important to point out that Waterford were good and aggressive on the ball and got some great scores,” Fitzgerald said.
He also acknowledged that Brian O’Halloran caused a lot of problems. “I remember playing him in an All-Ireland semi-final a few years ago and I got absolutely slated for it. He is a talent and a very good lad. Waterford have lovely young forwards there,” he said.
“It will be an interesting battle come June. I don’t think there will be too much in it,” he said of the upcoming championship first round meeting of the teams, scheduled for Thurles on the first Sunday in June.
He refused to be drawn on Clare’s next outing, which sees them host neighbours Galway.
“I am not going to think about that now. We have to get over today and look at what went wrong. In fairness to the lads they showed character when they went that much down. We stayed with it and came back into it. We could have won if you look at the chances we had.
“We had two or three clear cut goal chances that we didn’t exploit, one in the first half and two in the second. You have got to take them. We had bad wides from inside 30 yards that I can’t explain.
“Waterford will say that they had bad wides also. It’s the first round of the league and we were beaten and it’s not a nice place to be,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, Waterford manager Michael Ryan was clearly pleased with the outcome.
“We stayed in Limerick last night and we had a really good team meeting. We prepared well over the last ten weeks. These lads have been working hard. I couldn’t understand the odds of three to one against to win the game.
“I can’t understand that as there is nothing between Waterford and Clare. This game will have no bearing on the Munster championship,” he said.
“I had a good gut feeling about this all week. Our training was going really well and fellas are working hard. We are delighted with the win,” added Ryan.