TRIBE CAN TAME WILD MAN DAVY
Galway’s hurling is ‘unquestionable’ says skipper Burke
IT seems nearly everybody has a Davy Fitz story. David Burke tells a good one about a colleges final that captures the wild unpredictability of the Sixmilebridge man.
Long before Fitzgerald was cast in the role of Wexford messiah, or brokered an All-Ireland with his native Clare via a famous squad meeting over MiWadi and biscuits in the sitting room of his own house, he used Limerick IT as a hurling laboratory.
Galway’s current captain, Burke, was involved with arch rivals Limerick University. ‘The 2011 Fitzgibbon final was like when two tribes go to war. We’d come out to do the warm-up in the final beforehand,’ recalls Burke, smiling.
‘We were down the far end and LIT were coming out to stay out – mind games already. We were going back in the tunnel, it was in the new Waterford campus at the time. All you could see was LIT lads coming like trains and small Davy coming behind them. He just bounced off a wall, bounced off one of our players and I was at the back of our group so I could see it all happening.
‘They were trying to psyche us out of it but that helped us massively. We went into the dressing room, reset and we focussed again.
‘That day, as well, they didn’t seem to play much defensive hurling early on when he was in LIT. It was only in the latter stages at LIT he had time to work on this defensive system and that’s where he probably perfected, and had time to introduce it, into the county teams.’
He saw echoes of that day and the untamed streak in Fitzgerald’s character when watching him pick up an eight-week ban after running on to the field in the league semi-final against Tipperary. Also in the specially-constructed glass viewing box from which the Wexford manager watched his players dethrone Kilkenny in style.
‘Obviously afterwards I seen the pictures of the glass case or whatever but he totally went under the radar for that couple of weeks. It worked out because it was kind of “me against the world”.
‘He got suspended so he was kind of saying “Look, I’ll go under the floors here and hide away for a while.”
‘Wexford have beaten Kilkenny twice in a short space of time. That’s a fair achievement in itself. Kilkenny don’t lose to teams twice. Very rarely in that space of time.
‘They’ve obviously been working hard on their tackling. Davy has brought it on to a whole new level where when they’re attacking that the whole field is going forward. Then, when they’re going back, they have the faith in that sweeper to hold back and not concede goals. Their method is “we’ll score more points than the opposition”.’
Burke is 27 now. Three-time All Star midfielder and a natural fit as captain, who made his debut in 2010 when Galway last played Wexford in the Championship. Bringing the League trophy back to his club St Thomas’ in May was a proud moment, but the county’s single Leinster title in 2012 isn’t the sort of return he imagined.
But then, few imagined the season unfolding this way when Wexford plucked promotion from Division 1B from Galway’s grasp after coming from six behind at Salthill in a spring head-to-head.
‘Galway-Wexford Leinster final? Nobody would have predicted it. Going to be a massive crowd. Wexford haven’t been in Croke Park in a while. We have. So we’ll be trying to use that experience to get a good start.
‘It was awful frustrating at that time. We’d built a lot on getting promoted, getting back up. But once that was over, it was “look, finish second, try and win the league if we can”. And we did.
‘We knew they were coming. Lads were brought back in to the squad for that particular game. It wasn’t as if we were being naïve and gave them no respect. We gave them all the respect we could. We were ready for it. Put it down to whatever training we were doing… I don’t know. We just went flat on the day in the second half.
‘A lot of lads wanted to get Wexford again. Not Kilkenny. Get another crack at them again. It mightn’t be pretty for long periods; it could be very defensive hurling. But look, we’re going to have to play through that.’
He admires what Fitzgerald has done, although he is no fan of the sweeper system that has underpinned Wexford’s progress. Offaly tried two against Galway last time out and conceded 33 points.
‘To be honest I think if you play a sweeper you are not going to win at the end of the day. Maybe the last day, Offaly should have just pushed on in the second half and just threw caution to the wind. It will only get you so far and I think Davy knows that as well.
‘That’s why he has tweaked it a small bit where you can see those half-backs up in the forwards all the time and they are pushing up the field. It’s something I don’t agree with at the end of the day.’
At this stage in his career, Burke is conscious of the clock ticking, and of the expectations that come with being current favourites for the All-Ireland.
‘I’m still only 27. Looking at it as a whole panel of players, there is obviously pressure on us to deliver. Every year you’re nearly favourites for the All-Ireland. We have to be in the final to win it. For us, there’s three more games. We’re not under severe pressure by it.’
Losing the 2012 and 2015 AllIreland finals, and failing to kick on in the Leinster deciders this past two years against Kilkenny, means the team’s leadership has been questioned. It’s a fair cop, he says.
‘I wouldn’t question that. It is a massive thing we’re obviously trying to work on. Our hurling is unquestionable. When we are playing well. In them big games, that leadership question – we are trying to work on that. And we feel we’re getting there. This is the game we need to show it.
‘Talking about it is grand. We need to go out and deliver.’