“If people around Waterford want to make up rumours, that’s fine”

Davy Fitzgerald has dismissed rumours of unrest within the Waterford hurling squad. The Clare man was speaking at the launch of the Munster championships last Thursday via video link from their training camp in Portugal.

“I got a text the other day, ‘I heard you’re fighting with this lad and that lad’. What can you do, only laugh at it. I can’t do anything else. If people around Waterford want to make up rumours, that’s fine. I’ve accepted that a long time ago. If I was beaten ten or twelve points in my league games and I was getting hammered, I’d have an issue but I don’t have that."

"The first three games of the league, we were missing nine so-called starters that will be there or thereabouts. The last game or so, we started to get them back but they weren’t match fit. We haven’t been far away and we’ve blooded over 30 players in the league. I’m happy with that. Can I stop the rumours? No I can’t. You know what, let them off. If we win on April 21 or May 5, do you think those rumours will count for much? That’s the way I look at it."

"If we lose, they’ll nail me no matter what the story is. I don’t really mind; I can’t do anything about it.” 

‘NOT IN A BAD PLACE’ 

The team spent five days in the twenty degree Portugal sunshine. “I haven’t got much time for a tan but the weather makes a big difference,” Fitzgerald remarked. 

“It’s just so much easier to do stuff. Lads are in better form, you’re getting up in daylight and it’s not cold. It’s easier to get the work done; to just have the few days where you’re in an environment where you can actually just take stock. 

We, as a panel, know that we didn’t have a very bad league. We lost a few games but we were right there. For us to talk about that, iron out a few things and get the guys back from injury, it’s exciting. We’re not in a bad place but being out here is great.” 

He believes that the warm weather training will do the group a world of good ahead of their provincial opener against Cork. “This is a four day period where you can get two or three weeks of work done. Why do you go away on a training camp? Why do you need to go here? The reason you go to the likes of here, one is the weather and you feel a bit better. We’re in the bad weather from the end of November, December, January, February, we’re in awful weather. We get four or five days to get a bit of good weather which puts you in good form. 

We’re also in that environment where we’re around each other all the time. The amount of different meetings and the amount of stuff that we can get done is unreal. When you’re at home, to get that time is nearly impossible. You might get a Saturday where you take four or five hours or whatever. Here, we’re around each other the whole time. We’ve had two or three meetings today about different things. 

Player engagement is massively important where they can speak. I have to say that the environment feels unreal between management and players, we’re working on X, Y and Z. As I said to them, we can’t help if there’s rumours. We can’t do anything about that. We just have to let them off. We just do what we can do here. I’ll put it to you this way, it isn’t a bad place to be at the moment in this environment.”