As the teams mulled over the significance of Clare’s defeat to Waterford, the attitude of the two managers couldn’t have been more opposite. Davy Fitzgerald was visibly agitated at what he thought were “mind-games”, while Ger O’Loughlin blamed a “flat day”.
A relatively one-sided affair as an experimental Waterford side had 12 points to spare over an equally new look Clare side on Sunday. Waterford were sharp, focused and eager to impress while a lifeless Clare looked like a side that had executed their pre-match routine up the nearby Knockmealdown Mountains.
In such circumstances, you would expect the winning manager to be glowing but as he watched his players warm-down in the centre of the field after the game, Davy Fitzgerald was agitated, sensing that his former team-mates Ger O’Loughlin, Danny Chaplin and Liam Doyle had cagily refused to show their full hand. And in his typically passionate manner, he wasn’t about to keep his suspicions to himself.
“You can’t take anything from that game because Clare, in my opinion, did not try. Last Tuesday night they worked very hard and they were unreal last Tuesday night. The way they worked, the way they battled was unreal. I’m not fooled at all by that. That’s only mind games and I’m not into that so we came out, we played the game and I just don’t feel that they worked hard and that’s only my honest opinion. I know that there’s way more in Clare than that without a shadow of a doubt.
“The game last Tuesday night, they blocked and tackled and hassled and harried. Can you tell me that they blocked and tackled outside there? No.
“Listen, we did what we had to do and that’s fine but I’m not fooled. If they say that there are no mind games, then that’s rubbish, they did not go flat out there.”
Delving further, was he angry at Clare’s supposed tactics?
“We came to play a game and I’d like to have got more tackles and whatever, but I’m sure we will get them on June 7. I know myself being from Clare what they are capable of and I just feel they are capable of a bit more than what they showed there. All I am saying is we are reading nothing into that and we are expecting an avalanche on June 7, we know what it’s going to be like. But at the same time, we had to come out and try to play the game today and we tried to play it.
“I just don’t believe in rubbish. I think you can’t tell me if you were at the game last Tuesday night that it was the same as today. You cannot. They put tackles into the Tipp lads, I was down there and I saw it myself. I was waiting for that today and I didn’t see it. Did I learn anything today? No. Don’t be fooled.”
Such was Fitzgerald’s frustration that he couldn’t even fully evaluate his own side’s performance in such a lob sided clash.
“Isn’t it easy be good when you are not being tackled as hard? That’s what I’m saying to you. I will put it to you this way. Even Sparrow’s emotion on the sideline today compared to last week was totally different and I watched it closely. Last Tuesday night, he was non-stop moving up and down the sideline, keeping the players going. Today I think you saw it yourself, not a word. I’m not an idiot. I’m not going to read into it like that so at the end of the day we won the game, that’s grand and we will play the final next week. I suppose for us, the National League starts in three weeks time and we know being without seven or eight of the lads, we are going to have to work hard but I think my lads will work hard. We will be up against it in a lot of games but we will work hard. There are some great young lads there, absolutely fantastic but we will be up against it missing so many.”
However, it wasn’t long before the conversation reverted to Clare and whether or not they simply rolled over ahead of the sides’ Munster championship semi-final on the June Bank Holiday Monday.
“I’m not saying that, I’m just saying why didn’t they tackle as hard as they did last Tuesday night? That’s all I’m saying, I just don’t feel they did it. They can say what they like, I don’t care. I saw the difference last Tuesday night compared to today. The way I looked at it, no-one is going to learn anything for next June because we are missing a number of players, they are missing a number of players so what is it? Why waste a Sunday and just come down - let’s have a good game, that was the way I was taking it but at the same time, you have got to respect whatever way they want to do it, they do it and that’s the bottom line and we will do the job we have got to do.
“The one thing I am very sure about, I know the lads that are over them they are very shrewd guys and I know that we will be in for an absolute dinger of a game come June. I know that, I’m under no illusions whatsoever and we know that there will only be a point in it either way.”
Minutes later, Clare manager Ger O’Loughlin stepped out of the Clare dressing room blissfully unaware of his counterparts comments.
“I wouldn’t expect him to say anything different,” he responded with a smile. “No, we came down genuinely to give a good account of ourselves but we were just very flat today and just didn’t play any brand of hurling at all. So we will put our hands up and say ‘look we have to recognise that we have an awful lot of work between now and June in the league and we will take heart from the other games we played in the competition as well’. I suppose the other side of it is that we are very much trying to settle on a team as well, we are trying out five or six lads every match so it’s not a settled team. That’s not an excuse, we were just very poor today.
“It was a wake up call I suppose. We were well and truly outclassed in nearly every position but I suppose from our own point of view, we have got a bit out of the Waterford Crystal. We were decent against Tipperary, we were very honest and we tried hard and in also in our first day out against WIT, we were very honest but today we just came up against a very smart and sharp team and we were a good bit behind. Don’t anyone underestimate that we have a mountain to climb if we are going to compete with them in June but that’s the task we have. So hopefully we will get there.”
With the championship firmly in mind, O’Loughlin is very wary of Clare and Waterford’s contrasting National League fixture list, however he also feels that playing in Division 2 should not be detrimental to Clare’s chances in this year’s Munster championship.
“There is no doubt about it, Waterford will get three or four very good games in the league and we probably won’t have that but that’s the position we are in. We will have to go looking for matches that we will be playing top class teams in challenge matches but I think what we have to do is prepare ourselves to the best of our ability and if we do that, we should be a match for most counties.”
Whether intentional or not, it seems the mind games have already begun ahead of the Munster championship. It may be over four months away but for two determined managers, realistically it will be never far from their thoughts.
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