Davy Fitzgerald has never been known for holding back but he was desperately trying to keep his innermost thoughts to himself in the aftermath of his Clare side's drawn hurling final with Cork at Croke Park.
It was a game they should have won, after a superb performance left them with a 25-point total that would be good enough for victory almost any other day. On this day, however, Cork found goals, three of them, but Fitzgerald's feeling, although thinly disguised, was that they were helped along the way by referee Brian Gavin.
“I thought we played unreal stuff, so we did, today. A lot of things out there I could talk about but I’m just going to leave it be. We have another day out in three weeks time.”
Pressed on his grievances by RTÉ’s Clare McNamara, he added: “People aren’t blind out there, just leave it at that. We’ve got to go out to battle again and we’ll go out and battle.
“The good thing about Clare and Cork, they’re two good hurling teams and they gave everything they had out there today, and it was great for the neutral to watch, maybe not so great for us.
“We had it won a few times and they kept being brought back into it. That’s the way it goes, we were only the small little fish out there today. It’s harder to get the breaks when you are the smaller fish.”
Fitzgerald's side faced two Anthony Nash penalties, one was saved by Patrick Kelly, the other by Conor Ryan, but the Cork goalkeeper rippled the net with a free in the second half and Fitzgerald felt it was all coming a bit too easy for them.
Cork’s Shane O’Neill also escaped a dismissal after his hurl made contact with the back of Darach Honan’s head in the first half.
“The opportunities that were presented, presented to Cork, were fairly unreal and they hit us blow after blow, and we kept coming back.
“It’s tough on the lads, they’re young lads and they keep having to deal with blow after blow but they dealt with it and I’m extremely proud of them. And fair play to Cork, it was a good hurling game out there, and it will be exciting again the next day.”
It was corner back Domhnall O’Donovan who ensured there would be a next day, with a rare point (his first in the championship) after a late burst up the left ended in a perfectly taken score when the pressure was on, thanks to Patrick Horgan’s late score for Cork.
“Didn’t they show some heart at the end when the game looked over to back up the field? And Domhnall O’Donovan, probably if I had to pick one, I don’t know if I would have picked ‘Dunny’, but he did the business.”
Cork manager Jimmy Barry Murphy conceded his side were a "bit lucky" to end up where they did but insisted the result was a fair one.
“The lads are a bit down, we felt we were nearly there and maybe a bit lucky to be in that situation, but I think overall a draw was a fair result.”
Clare, he said, “played very well” and “were a credit to their manager”, but his Rebels “never threw in the towel”.
He added: “I’m just looking forward to having another go at them the next day.”
