*Davy Fitzgerald speaking after Sunday’s game. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
Wexford left it late to take victory from Clare’s grasp in the second round of the Allianz National Hurling League.
Wexford boss Davy Fitzgerald, while happy with the result, noted “we had a lot of bad wides today. We shouldn’t have been in that position. I’m happy with the fight we showed. We can’t be missing the scores we missed today. That was Chinner’s (Lee Chin) first game in five months. Clare popped the frees and we didn’t pop ours”.
That said Fitzgerald stressed “he will be going back on the frees. I have massive confidence in him. Fair play to Rory (O’Connor), he had one from a tight angle at the end and he made it count.”.
“Ten minutes before half time we got control of the game and we had it back to two points. We would not have been in a bad position but for their goal before half time when Clare hit us with a sucker punch. We were down to 14 for the first ten minutes of the second half”, said the Sixmilebridge man.
Fitzgerald added, “We have had 3 or 4 good years. The one thing I like to think is that we never give in, even when I was manager of Clare, we fight to the bitter end. That’s very important to me, that we never ever give in and we didn’t today. We found a nice bit of room up front in the final period”.
The former Clare manager went on to say “I can’t wait to see how many bad wides we had. I’m happy with the win, I always knew Clare were going to keep fighting to the end. You could say that Liam Corry’s sending off had a big influence on game but we were a man down for ten minutes of the game”.
Concluding the Model County’s boss reflected, “it was nice to get the result. It was only our second game back. Clare’s attitude was very good today and TK (Tony Kelly) going off was a big blow to them. He would be a loss to any team. That’s how it goes and we are just happy to come out with a victory”.
