Brendan Crossan speaks with Antrim’s new senior hurling manager Davy Fitzgerald and finds that the passion inside the Clare man is showing no signs of dimming...
Brendan Crossan: It was mentioned in Christy O’Connor’s 2005 book ‘Last Man Standing’ that you had a coaching spell with Antrim U21s. Not a lot of people know that you would have coached up here.
Davy Fitzgerald: I would have gone up a few times and took sessions for a lot of teams. Seamus Elliott would have brought me up there. He brought me here, there and everywhere. A great guy.
BC: When was your affinity for Antrim hurling nurtured?
DF: I’ll tell you exactly where it was nurtured. It was nurtured when Sixmilebridge and Dunloy playing in an All-Ireland club final (1996) and I remember months afterwards Sixmilebridge were invited up to Dunloy. I got to know Seamus McMullan and our friendship grew massively. It was unbelievable the way we were treated up there. That’s where it all came from.
BC: You have been coaching without a proper break since 1989. Would you say you’re addicted to hurling?
DF: That is pretty right. I’ve coached every year probably since I was 18. As well as playing I was coaching. From being involved at senior level, I think I’ve had one break – but I was taking the Cork camogie team that year.
So, I’ve really had no break since ‘89. Was I was looking for a job when I decided to go from Waterford (at the end of last season)? I can tell you for a fact I wasn’t.
For the first time I was pretty content not to do anything. And people can say what they like – I don’t really care. The only ones who know are myself and my family. I was content.
I was offered another two years in Waterford, and if I was that addicted, I would have stayed in Waterford. I had my own reasons for going and I went. I had a month or two out and I got this call from out of the blue… It’s just Antrim’s enthusiasm, their passion, their drive, it kind of resonated with what I’m about.
To me, it’s about having a good experience as well. I just had that feeling. That’s the ‘why’ for me. A lot of people talk about helping Antrim and how good they are up there – but talk is cheap, isn’t it? It’s now or never and I said let’s give it a shot. That took a bit of deliberation with my family because I have a two-and-a-half year-old boy [Daithi Og] but we’re going to give it a go.
BC: Would you say you’re mad? The distance involved from your home to Antrim?
DF: When you look at Wexford, that’s two hours 45 minutes down and back. After five years there, it took just a couple of months [break] where I felt good again. I never mind driving too much. There are times after a while it may be gets to me, and I need a break from driving a while. I travel a lot anyway no matter what I’m doing, so it doesn’t really bother me.
People might say, ‘You’re mad’. There was a lot of apprehension on Sharon’s part [Davy’s wife]. The experience she had in Wexford was off-the-charts good. Waterford would have been tougher because we lost a few league games by a point or two.
In Waterford, you’ve to win every game even if you’ve eight or nine of your team not playing. You’re meant to win them all which is next to impossible, yet our Championship run was different.
So, she probably never got the same experience in Waterford. I said to Sharon that I really believe the people of Antrim are different. If you lose a game, they won’t be at your throat every two seconds; they’re not that kind of people. We talked about a lot of stuff.
You see, I’ve had nothing but good experiences up in Antrim and I don’t want that to change. And if you look at my record, you’d realise 90 percent of it I’ve won with teams that have struggled to win and can’t get near it. That’s what I love – to see if I can develop and get there.
I don’t know if I’ll be able, but I’ll be certainly trying. We just have to get rid of the inconsistency if we can.
If you can make a big difference in a county that hasn’t had major joy, that’s a big step. Wexford went to a puck of a ball to winning an All-Ireland. I’d like to think I got Waterford right back up in the big time – you could see in the Championship we were there with every team and we were competing.
So that’s my thing with Antrim: Can I make them more consistent? Can I get them to be contenders?
Like, we might go back down to Joe McDonagh, we might not – I don’t know – we might get up to where I want to go. It’ll take us a small bit of time, it might take a year, two years because when you’re going to train fellas in a different way, when they have to think about it, they’re going to be a small bit slower, initially. It would take a small bit longer to where I want to go.
If I just let them do what they’re doing, we’ll keep getting the same results, so I’ll have to change some things – and I won’t be copying any other team. Whatever system or whatever way we decide to play… Like, I hear this thing now: will you be playing 15 on 15? There hasn’t been 15 on 15 in 30 years. When Kilkenny were going well in the 2000s, they were bringing 12 bodies back.
BC: By you playing a sweeper in Waterford and Wexford, you took a fair brunt of the criticism that was flying around…
DF: Some of those pundits have never trained or managed anywhere. I’d be very straight about that.
Anyone who has trained under me knows that I’m going to give them a lot of their own decisions to make. It isn’t a matter of get the ball, hit the ball – it’ll be get the ball, move with the ball, give it short, give it long, dink it across the field, shoot long.
It’ll be their decisions to make but I’ll put the players in positions where they’ve to make decisions. I hear this thing about hit the ball as long as you can. If that’s the way certain people see hurling, that’s fine.
I’m just not one of those people that likes rucks of nine or 10 players from long balls beaten down the field. So, people talking about me being negative is nonsense. Playing plus-one is not negative.
You’re allowing players to not play in a box. I want them to have the freedom to play – I want them to be flexible.
I’d like to have two or three different ways of playing but it’s funny, I’d rather play a plus-one or a sitting six and play the game on Antrim’s terms… We’ve got to try something different.
I’m not saying we’re going to play plus-one. It’s just some people’s knowledge is skewed if they think that the Limerick team that won four All-Irelands in a row played 15 on 15, they’re absolutely doting.
Go back and look at Gearoid Hegarty, go back and look at Tom Morrissey and tell me how often they were in their half-back line. How many times was Darragh O’Donovan going back to his own ‘21? You’d pick numerous examples. It’s not playing 15 on 15.
BC: You could have taken the handy route and went down the punditry line. Why didn’t you?
DF: I’m still young enough. Mickey Harte is over 70 and is going again. I have time to do that [punditry]. I love making a difference. I saw one player at the weekend in the Antrim club championship and I know he’ll be a county player.
I know there is something I can do differently that’ll help him. He mightn’t like it, but it’ll definitely help him be a better player for Antrim. My job is to spot and improve.
BC: What is the most enjoyable part of coaching or managing for you?
DF: There are two or three things. One is for a team that weren’t rated to come along and do something different and to see the reaction of people. When Wexford won Leinster [2019], to see the crowd afterwards – we went down to Gorey and we couldn’t move the bus for three hours because the people were just ecstatic, that was unreal.
I managed that with Waterford, winning Munster [in 2010], winning an All-Ireland with Clare [in 2013], and winning with numerous club teams that hadn’t won anything.
Would I love to see Antrim get a small taste of that? F***ing hell. One. Hundred. Per cent. You can only imagine what that would be like. So that’s a big thing.
Seeing a player’s potential and helping him develop into a better player is another reason why I do it. Seeing if I can help change a culture, and for these players to get more than hurling out of it.
I want them to be more than just an Antrim hurler. I want to add other bits and pieces to that, and I’m trying to do the same with the backroom team at the minute.
We just need patience. If we can’t do it in two to three years, then someone else can do it – but stay with us. It’s a lot easier to do stuff if we have everyone behind us.
They’re the things that make me tick. What also makes me tick is trying to come up with new stuff. You have to evolve. Life evolves all the time, no matter what job you’re in, you’re always looking to get better all the time.
BC: What’s the hardest part of management?
DF: The hardest part for me is when you’re managing and things are going poorly and you’re not getting the backing you deserve; the supporters turning on you, your family getting abuse and you’re saying to them: ‘Don’t come to the matches anymore.’
I’ve no time for supporters like that in the GAA. I don’t like it. Your family deserve more than that when they go to a game. People say: ‘Well, you took the job on.’ But I didn’t take the job to be abused left, right and centre.
Does any manager go out and lose f***ing games? No. Do managers make mistakes? They do, of course. There are a lot of different things and that hurts a small bit because you’re putting in serious hours, but that’s the way it is. I won’t change that.
BC: You brought your Wexford team to Corrigan Park for a Division 1B game in 2021 with Antrim which finished in a draw. Darren Gleeson and you were involved in some pushing and shoving on the sideline line. What’s your recollection of that day?
DF: Darren did a really good job with Antrim. They’d some good days in Corrigan Park. I’m trying to bring them on more by being more consistent at Corrigan Park – not every second game, I want them to be doing well in every game.
And the big one is doing better away from home. As regards with what went on that day between Darren and me, I’d hope I’ll fight like that with Antrim, that I’ll fight tooth and nail for them. That’s my job. It was my job with Wexford. Did I go to Corrigan Park taking Antrim for granted? No, I did not. If I had done, we would have been beaten that day. We weren’t beaten, it was a draw.
BC: What makes a good hurling team?
DF: Balance. It’s having that balance between skilful hurlers, hurlers that will go to the well, and then you have the smart hurlers. If you can get that combination and get a panel together that will have a true identity… that they must know that they are representing the people that went before them, that we have real values and what it means to be Antrim. I want them to be more than just an Antrim hurler.
BC: Who were your biggest influences?
DF: Fr Harry Bohan of Sixmilebridge was a massive influence on me. I would have looked up to Gerry McInerney, big-time. He was a club-mate of mine and won an All-Ireland club. He was in our house all the time. You’d no idea what an experience that was.
From watching this fella as a small little nipper and him coming into our house when he was playing for Clare. In his last year or two I ended up playing club senior with him.
We had a club manager called Paddy Meehan. My God – what he did for Sixmilebridge, the way he devoted himself, he gave everything to be the best manager, the best club chairman and I suppose the biggest influences were my dad and my uncle.
BC: Do you miss your playing days?
DF: So much. Managing is great but it’s not the same. One thing I want this group of players to realise is being in the first 15 is important but it’s not everything. Being part of this group has to be everything. Don’t be a selfish player – be a player who wants to help Antrim.
I can’t play everyone. If we can get a bunch in order for Antrim to be successful. The most important guys on your panel are probably the ones from probably 26 to 36.
If they figure it out, the impact that they can have on the rest of the panel is amazing. It can raise the thing at training, they can create an unbelievable atmosphere, and you think, why would they do that as they’re not on the 26? We need them to create that culture. If they do that, don’t we all win?
I look back to the team I won with in ‘95 and there were guys on that who didn’t play. Oh my God, the role that they had was unreal. I’d have no All-Ireland medal without them. They have the same All-Ireland medal as I have.
BC: Who was the best team-mate you ever had?
DF: Anthony Daly was a super captain. He was able to bring people together. Even when he wasn’t playing, Cyril Lyons was a good fella, always team-first which was a very important thing. We’d a lot of good guys. I loved playing with PJ O’Connell. He was never one of the main guys but, by God, he’d give you everything. We played some rubbish stuff too, but we gave everything. I know I wouldn’t have All-Ireland medals only for the character of some of them.
BC: Life is about fine lines. Do you ever think if Domhnall O’Donovan’s equalising score in the 2013 All-Ireland final against Cork hadn’t gone over, would life have been much different? As it turned out Clare won the replay.
DF: Listen, there are fine lines in everything. Cork had a few chances this year to win the All-Ireland against Clare. Clare were the better team and could easily have lost the All-Ireland. In ‘13, we were by far the better team the first day. We shouldn’t have been in the position we were in. We were way better. But you need luck – just like we will with Antrim.
I just hope people respect me for making the effort and stay with me. This wasn’t an easy decision for me to do this and I’m not doing it for the sake of it.
Like, I’ve my own businesses and I do okay. I’m doing this because I want to see if I can make a difference. I’m very much my own person and I think people see that with the Waterford situation. No-one pushed me. I made up my mind to leave for my reasons.
In fairness to Wexford, it was the most unbelievable experience ever and we got results. I just hope I have that support with Antrim. Am I going to keep everybody happy? No. Please God, I can help Antrim. If I can’t, I won’t be hanging around. I don’t want to be going away from Daithi Og that much. I’m giving up time. Hopefully he’ll be coming up to Antrim every second weekend.
Do you know what, somebody from Antrim sent him a jersey. You’ve no idea the difference that makes. My wife said to me: ‘That’s a great feeling.’ That’s a big thing for me.
BC: If you didn’t think there was sufficient potential in this current Antrim panel, would you have accepted the role?
DF: I probably wouldn’t. I believe there is more there. We’ve got to look at everybody. I can’t keep them all happy – they have to know that. Am I going to ask them to go to places they haven’t gone before? Yeah. But they’ll get back a lot too, I can promise them that.
BC: Would you take third place in the Leinster SHC group stages now?
DF: Yep. I’d take it. F***ing chalk it off! I haven’t seen Antrim in the knock-out stages over the last number of years. I can’t say we won’t go down to Joe McDonagh. It might happen but over three years I’d be out of that stage, please God.
BC: Any career regrets?
DF: The All-Ireland semi-final loss to Tipperary in 2019 is one of them. We [Wexford] were there and we just went away from the game-plan. We were playing short, short, short – they’d a man sent off and the next thing we went f***ing long and I don’t know why. The lads just panicked a small bit – they were great lads. That was an All-Ireland Wexford could have won.
BC: There’s a story told in Last Man Standing during your playing days where you were so determined to be number one for Clare that you would get on your bike early in the morning, ride a few miles, stop off and puck a few balls against a wall just so Leo Doyle [Clare keeper] would see you on his route to work every morning. Is that true?
DF: Yeah. Leo can deny it but that was the truth (laughing). I love Leo. A great guy. That’s actually what happened.
