MARK FITZ’ THE BILL FOR BANNER
CLARE v KERRY
NOBODY would have questioned Tralee native Mark Fitzgerald if he had run away from the prospect of taking over as Clare senior football manager.
After all, following the much-admired 10-year reign of Colm Collins (inset) in the Banner, it appeared a poisoned chalice.
Then, when you factor in the situation of up to 16 players departing in advance of the 2024 season, this looked to be a job to avoid.
Fitzgerald, however, didn’t hesitate. Having got a taste of the managerial rollercoaster with Limerick, he was more than ready for a new challenge.
“It was a year of significant learnings with Limerick, both good and bad, I think some of the stuff is well documented. Probably what the year showed me is that I was able to manage players,” he said.
“The year probably did whet the appetite, I had a good time there, those Limerick lads were really good. I just felt that this was something that I wanted to take further, and Clare came calling then.
“If you think long and hard enough about these things, there are probably a hundred reasons not to do every job, even though I wasn’t fully aware of the complete totality of the exodus.
“I was aware that lads were talking about retiring, or leaving, and I knew that, but I had seen the potential within Clare. I had been involved with Limerick last year and we played them twice.
“I just thought it was a good opportunity for myself, in terms of ongoing development, and that maybe we could add something different than what the lads had the last couple of years.
“We still piggy-backed on a lot of the stuff that was there, we kept a lot of the back-room team. I was happy to take on the challenge.”
Doubts
Surely, with the likes of Cathal O’Connor and Ciarán Russell retiring and stars like Jamie Malone, Keelan Sexton and Eoin Cleary unable to commit, there had to be doubts?
“Would I love to have Keelan and Eoin and all these lads? 100 per cent, absolutely, and the door is always open for those lads to come back, I made that very clear,” he added.
“I knew very early that they were gone. We just had to adjust, and we just had to move on.You can’t keep looking over your shoulder, you’ve to try and look forward, and that was it really.
“We took the
League game by game and that was the only way that we could do it. We didn’t want to make any grand plans, we didn’t want to do any silly statements.”
With five wins, Clare were only the narrowest of defeats, against Westmeath, from an immediate League return to Division Two.
Now they are back in a second successive Munster final.
“There’s no point in saying otherwise, Clare football is up against Clare hurling, for players, for coverage, so they’ve to carve their own piece of history.
Ultimately
“I think the big thing for Clare is to be involved in these bigger games. We have to see where it takes us, but I think Clare football will, ultimately, be better because of it.
“I think if you asked them, they probably didn’t do themselves justice last year in the game, Kerry ran out easy winners, but Clare are better than what they showed last year.
“It’s a brilliant opportunity to try and test themselves against Kerry, who are one of the favourites for the All-Ireland. We’ve no illusions what’s ahead of us here, but happy to try and take on the task.”
A Kerry SFC winner with Kerins O’Rahillys in 2002, a former Kingdom minor selector and close friends with one of Jack O’Connor’s right-hand men, Micheál Quirke, Fitzgerald understands the scale of tomorrow’s opposition.
“My allegiance is to Clare at the moment. They were good enough to ring me about the job, and good enough to give it to me, so at the end of the day, it’s football.
“It’s a results-based business, and the task for us is to see where we can go with it. There is a bit of craic around the place with my kids, with my family, and with my friends, but I’m just looking forward to it.
“It’s an exciting time. If you had offered me this at the start of the year when we played Cork in the McGrath Cup, and we had 19 players, I’d have bitten your hand off for it.”
Clare are already assured of a place in the AllIreland SFC round-robin groups, more progress, after getting three games at that stage last season.
“From our point of view, we need a really good, solid performance, and see if we can stay in the game for as long as we can. I think that would be a good result for us.”