DAVY FITZ KNEW what lay ahead for Clare in yesterday’s Munster semi-final defeat to Cork.
Just eight days after two of his panel lined out for the county’s footballers in the Munster quarter-final, Davy’s team shipped a five-point beating against a far hungrier, “zippier” Cork side.
“You can’t take away what the lads have done,” Fitzgerald said, “but I am worried because there’s been a lot taken out of the lads.
“There are a few lads that think they can play both codes -you can’t do it.
“I knew something was going to happen today before the game even happened, and if you know that going into a game, sure you’re wasting your time. What are you doing?
I don’t think we were as zippy or as fresh as we should be. We gave away nearly three weeks up there to the clubs as well.
Dual star brothers Podge and Sean Collins lined out for their father’s football team in the Munster football quarter final draw with Waterford earlier this month. Sean also lined out for the footballers in Saturday’s replay with Waterford, ruling him out of the hurling panel a day later.
“I am not going to hide behind any issues,” Fitzgerald continued. “At the end of the day Cork were better on the field of play today.
“I’ll deal with that in my own way. There is something I might speak about at the end of the year and there is going to have to be something looked at.
“We’re getting away from the most important thing here. There are small little issues that I can deal with myself, that’s no problem.
“The important thing today was Cork played a great game of hurling. The better team won and that’s all I’m saying to you.”
Fitzgerald highlighted one Cork player who was vital in dismantling his team — Cork’s own dual star Aidan Walsh, ironically.
“We got killed in the middle. I thought they beat us well in the middle and we tried a few different things to rectify that but I don’t think we rectified it.
“The second goal came off a ball Aidan Walsh fielded that he should never have fielded. He should not have been able to field a ball the way he fielded that.”
Fitzgerald was also unhappy with a number of refereeing decisions throughout the game, questioning the first half foul count where his team were adjudged to have given away 12 frees.
They seemed to get a few soft frees to put them ahead. Their two goals came from two frees. We were finding it a small bit harder to get frees.
“They needed that game or two to adjust. Once they got the game or two they were flying on all cylinders. I thought they were awesome today and fair play to them.
“The pace was phenomenal out there and I love playing Cork because you know the one thing about playing them, they’re going to play hurling against you all day. There’s going to be no dirty slaps out there.
“Maybe we made a few wrong calls today, I don’t know, we’ll have to look back and see what the story is.
“There are certain days you get it wrong on the sideline, certain days you get it wrong on the field, and we’ll all look at ourselves.”
