Fitzgibbon Cup stars in the dark ahead of League fixture clash
CLARE full-back Conor Cleary has admitted he and a number of his colleagues still don’t know if they’ll be asked to play two huge games inside 24 hours this weekend. Clare are top of Division 1A after three wins from three and could finish the weekend four points clear if they beat Wexford at Innovate Wexford Park and Tipperary lose to Kilkenny. But the Kilmaley club man and UL student is among a long list of players competing in Saturday’s Electric Ireland Fitzgibbon Cup final and therefore unsure if they’ll be thrust back into action the following day. ‘We’re training Thursday evening and we’re going to decide then what the story is with the weekend,’ said Cleary, who has started all three of Clare’s 1A games so far. ‘There’s four of us from Clare in UL, there’s Tipperary lads as well and then there’s Wexford and Dublin lads on the DCU team that we play against. ‘At the start of the year when the fixtures were made, the final was down for this Saturday and there was a round of the League for the day after, so it was made and known at the start of the year but it was just went with.’ Wexford’s Paudie Foley, like Cleary, has been an everpresent in defence for his county in the League and also doesn’t know if he’ll feature on Sunday. ‘What has been said between myself and Davy Fitzgerald is, “Worry about Saturday and we’ll decide after that”,’ said Foley. The Wexford man is back involved with his county after taking 2017 out to travel, spending several months in San Francisco. The former underage star admitted he was burnt out with hurling and left with Fitzgerald’s blessing. ‘I had different conversations with him,’ said Foley. ‘A lot of them were not based around hurling at all. It was talking about my personal goals, just general talk. ‘I wanted a complete break, just time away to think. It has brought a new hunger into my game.’