Davy Fitzgerald has refused to pile the pressure on his native Clare to retain the MacCarthy Cup.
The best he’ll say is that they ‘have a chance’ but he will go on the record about their secret weapon - Brendan Bugler.
Fitzgerald managed Bugler when Clare won the All-Ireland in 2013 and then brought Bugler in as a coach with Wexford in 2020 when he was in charge there.
Current Clare manager Brian Lohan made a similar move last year when he brought Bugler into the Banner setup.
“They’re there to be knocked now,” said Fitzgerald of Clare’s back-to-back credentials. “Would I expect them to do it again? I think they have a chance. I’m not going to stand here and build Clare up, I think they have an opportunity.
“I think these guys are smart guys. I think Brendan Bugler going in with them was a massive, massive thing. I could see something in their defence last season for definite, that I probably wouldn’t have seen before.
“I’ll give you one of the things that I actually think it was; Waterford played Clare in the league, which Waterford lost by a point, and Stephen Bennett was being marked by Conor Leen and the ball was in a group of players there.
“Stephen Bennett was standing outside of it, Conor Leen had him (wrapped up). Stephen would be hoping to get on the ball in the next phase of play - he wasn’t getting onto the next phase of play! And I just remember thinking in my head, ‘F***ing Bugler!’
“I remember thinking to myself, ‘They’re definitely doing things a small bit different and it was good’. You have to say in fairness to the management, fair play, they were open to change and they did a few things. But my opinion is that Bugler definitely had a massive impact on it.”
Meanwhile, Fitzgerald reckons that if the GAA is serious about giving players a proper closed season, they need to enforce the December 7 return to training directive.
Asked if other counties broke the rule, Fitzgerald smiled.
“You probably know the answer to that yourselves,” he said. “Maybe they did, I can’t tell for definite, maybe they did. If we’re doing December 7, we have to 100 percent do it. We’re either doing it or we don’t do it. That’s all I’m going to say on that.”