Clare march on as Davy extends an olive branch
BRIAN LOHAN may have had the last laugh as his Clare side edged past Wexford in a pulsating All-Ireland hurling qualifier at Semple Stadium, but Davy Fitzgerald offered an olive branch to his former teammate in a bid to resolve their ongoing feud.
After a pulsating game in sweltering conditions, Wexford came up just short despite being 11 points behind at one stage.
Fitzgerald admitted this season has been the most difficult of his career, citing ongoing strife within his native county.
‘I’ve experienced the toughest year that I’ve ever experienced in GAA,’ Fitzgerald admitted.
‘The way myself and my family have been treated is an absolute and utter disgrace. The way I felt all week, I didn’t even know
if I wanted to come into this game to tell you the truth.’
He called on all parties in the county to put their differences aside for the betterment of Clare hurling, and offered to have face-to-face talks with Brian Lohan to settle their differences.
‘People said to me, “Would you ever talk to Brian Lohan?” I’ll tell you straight out, for the sake of Clare, 110 per cent if someone got a meeting between me and Brian Lohan in the morning, I’d
do it. I mightn’t like Brian Lohan and mightn’t have much time for him and the way he does stuff. He’d have the same for me. But we shouldn’t be at each other in Clare.
‘If Clare are to succeed, they all need to be together. And I am saying it straight now, would I put it to bed? I’d stand up in the morning and I would go and talk to anyone, shake hands, and I’d put it to bed. I don’t want Clare to be fighting with each other. We need to have a good hard look at ourselves in Clare and stop that.’
For Clare manager Brian Lohan, his only focus was this three-point victory, which was hard earned in the end, despite leading 1-11 to 0-4 after 20 minutes.
‘We utilised every break and every possession we got. We didn’t have too many wides either,’ said the Clare boss of their blistering start.
‘But there was going to come a time when Wexford were going to dominate and take over, and they scored eight in a row, and we didn’t want them to dominate as much as that, but they are a good team. They did dominate and made for a ding-dong battle all the way up along.’
The 4,400 crowd at Semple Stadium were expecting a close contest and the first quarter was anything but as Clare roared into the game, despite Wexford opening the scoring through Conor McDonald after just nine seconds.
After that it was all Clare.
The Banner were much more forceful in all the did, punishing Wexford mistakes in possession, and in the 10th minute Cathal Malone burst through for a goal, just minutes after Rory O’Connor missed a similar chance at the other end.
Wexford looked confused in how they wanted to play but Clare had no such issues with Malone, Ryan Taylor and Aidan McCarthy all on target.
Cathal Dunbar was the only one offering a scoring threat from play for Wexford, finishing with five points. Even after Diarmuid O’Keeffe scored a badly needed goal for Wexford on 23 minutes to reduce the margin to eight, there was no semblance of the recovery that would take place.
However, it began just before half time when they reeled off five points in a row to cut the margin to five at the break, and they added three more after half time as
all the momentum was with the Slaneysiders. However, Clare had all the answers and reopened a six-point lead at one stage in the second half with Rory Hayes and John Conlon powerful in defence while Cathal Malone once again got through a mountain of work in midfield.
Clare won the game despite their star man Tony Kelly being relatively quiet, two of this 10 points coming from play, while at the other end Lee Chin topscored with 1-12, 1-2 from play. Wexford will rue trying to force a couple of goal chances in the final 10 minutes when points were there for the taking to eat into Clare’s lead. The Banner held on with sub Gary Cooney flicking a high ball to the net in added time, with Chin’s goal with the final puck of the game a mere consolation for Wexford.