'They despise me' - Davy Fitz hits out at officials and plans to bring complaint to Croke Park
ANTRIM MANAGER DAVY Fitzgerald said there are issues he is going to take up with GAA officials in Croke Park this week but stressed that while he wasn’t happy with the sending off of Declan McCloskey just before the interval, they were never going to beat Galway at Pearse Stadium on Saturday.
McCloskey got a red card from referee Thomas Gleeson after his attention was drawn by linesman Johnny Murphy to an off the ball incident between McCloskey and Galway’s Tom Monaghan.
“I thought the sending off was absolutely… absolutely, if it’s a sending off, it’s a sending off by two, not by one,” said Fitzgerald after the 6-27 to 1-14 loss to Galway. “I had him distraught at half-time. He said, ‘I got a punch in the stomach. I reacted, but I got a punch in the stomach’. If you get a punch in the stomach…
“It’s not good enough. Would we have won the game? Definitely not. We weren’t good enough. We’re never going to win it. But I think it absolutely destroyed whatever chance we have.
“I’m not going to look for any excuses. I’m disappointed with the sending off, but it should have been two. I’m not saying the sending off wasn’t a sending off, but he got punched into the stomach before that happened.
“That’s what he said to me, and he reacted. So that means he didn’t just lash out for nothing. It’s just important. You can’t send a lad off like that. That was his first start in the championship this year, and I was so disappointed for him, but it actually put us behind the eight ball big time. We wouldn’t have beaten Galway today, as I told you.”
Fitzgerald then told newspaper reporters that there was something else which was not acceptable and he was going to take it up directly with Croke Park this week.
“We’ve gone to the referee’s room, and we’ve made him aware of it. We’ll not be accepting it. I’m not going to say what it is, because I think it would be very unfair to do that right now.
“We have to deal with it ourselves. But I think we shouldn’t focus on that. We focus on that we weren’t good enough today, that we needed to be in that second half.
“The other things we can take care of, but we can’t get over that we were not as competitive as we should have been in the second half. I really mean that. The other things we’ll take care of ourselves, that thing we have to deal with now.
“So that’s on us, and I think it’s important we reflect on us not being good. The other side shows there is one or two things we will be dealing with Croke Park on that’s not acceptable. But outside of that, we have to look at us, and we’ll look at that.”
Fitzgerald then told RTE Radio in a separate interview that he was ‘despised’ by some match officials.
“It was Johnny Murphy that seen and Johnny Murphy now wouldn’t have any time for me anyway – that’s out there,” he said. “Everybody knows that himself and one or two more of them, they actually despise me and that’s fine, I can get over that. But don’t take it out on the players, you have to see everything.”
It remains to be seen what the reaction is to Fitzgerald’s comments and complaints but he knows Antrim need to recover from the 28 point drubbing quickly as they face Offaly in a relegation clash in Tullamore on Saturday.
“This is a journey. We know where we’re going. So we have to look at ourselves and get that right. Yeah, we have to rise to the challenge,” added Fitzgerald. “That’s it. Will we be the underdogs? Yeah, I think Offaly have improved immensely. I think they’re definitely a better team. We can play it. We just haven’t done it as much as we should have in this championship. But hopefully we can get the few lads back.”
Galway, who led by 2-13 to 0-8 at the break having played against the wind, dominated after the restart and outscored Antrim by 4-14 to 1-6. Brian Concannon and Anthony Burns both scored goals in either half with Kevin Cooney and Declan McLoughlin also rattling the net, with Antrim’s only goal coming late in the game from Niall McGarrell.
Galway travel to take on Dublin next Sunday in Parnell Park and manager Micheal Donoghue — who was in charge of the Dubs last year when they knocked the Tribesmen out of the championship — knows how tough it will be.
“We know first hand how good they are. They have quality all over the team and we know it’s going to be a really tough game,” he said. “Even though we got a good result on the scoreboard, we’d been disappointed enough with our start in the game. I thought we didn’t get to the pitch or we didn’t set the tone on it and that was disappointing from our side.”
“But then we got into it and got a few scores, settled into it, pushed on ahead again at half-time against the wind,” added Donoghue, who confirmed that players such as Daithi Burke and Cathal Mannion weren’t risked as they were nursing knocks while he’s hopeful the injuries which forced full-back Fintan Burke and corner-back Darren Morrissey during the win over Antrim aren’t serious.
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