*David Fitzgerald. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
CLARE’S senior hurlers are back in championship action this weekend as they welcome to Waterford to Ennis and will need to record successive wins.
Wing forward David Fitzgerald who was named as the PwC GAA/GPA Player of the Month for March has flagged that within a fortnight two of the contenders for championship glory will see their season come to a close.
This will be “very hard to take,” he outlined. “The fact the Munster Championship is so competitive – two teams that at the start of the year viewed themselves as potentially winning Munster or the All-Ireland, being gone”.
Changes to the inter-county structure could be worth exploring, he mused. “Alternatively, you could look at another system, where it is almost a Champions League format. You have eight or 10 counties competing. That could be a flip side of it. I think the provincial series has a lot of prestige and history. It is good to keep them, but that is potentially for another day. “I think the fans obviously love the competition (Munster championship). The teams competing love the competition so it has a lot of history but sometimes change is good too”.
Fitzgerald’s role on the Clare side has changed under Brian Lohan and he has developed into an essential member of the starting fifteen. “I’m enjoying being further forward to be honest,” he admitted.
However his first priority is on getting selected. “But as long as you’re making the starting 15 as a player, that’s your number one really. There was a year or two when I was just making the bench, I didn’t make the 26 at another stage so getting back into the 15 was obviously my goal. Keeping that has been a positive. When I was brought in first, I think I was brought in as an attacker in 2016. Then we had a bit of an injury crisis in that league campaign and I ended up finding myself at wing-back. That was my home for a few years. Then Brian Lohan came in and he kind of pushed me further forwards so that is something that has changed in recent years”.
Players are in favour of the current inter-county format, the Inagh/Kilnamona man stressed. “From a player’s point of view, I know a lot of players say it, and I just want to reiterate it, that is what we obviously want. We want game-after-game. Compared to the old way, when I first started back in 2016, you’d play a game, and if you lost you might have six weeks off for another round. It is way better from a player point of view”.
Currently working with Stratos Aero, David who holds a Masters degree in Aviation Finance said he was at a loss as to explain who was objecting to the split season. “We played Limerick the Sunday before and the following Sunday we were out against Cork. That’s such a short window for two great games. That’s probably one of the reasons why there’s not too much time to dwell on or reflect on how the current system is. I know I keep harping on about it, but I love the fact that when we have these games so frequently, that if a game does not go well you have a week turnaround. You can park the week before and say I can improve things the following week and if things did go well you want to maintain momentum so it is good from that regard”.
Losing to Limerick in the opening round of the province was “a tough one to take,” he admitted. “Being up a few points, letting it slip the way we did, but then the fact we had Cork within seven days was great, to dust down the cobwebs, to try to improve things. It is quite a competitive landscape. Limerick are obviously the dominant force for the last four or five years. They have been the standard bearers”.
