Davy Fitzgerald describes Wexford team's house visit

Davy Fitzgerald and Lee Chin detail how the Wexford hurlers paid the manager a house visit to convince him to remain as manager.

Fitzgerald is preparing for his third year at the helm of the Wexford hurlers. The 2013 All-Ireland winning manager has overseen huge progress in the Model County, but feels there is unfinished business.

Fitzgerald admitted he was in two minds about whether or not to return in 2019.

"120 trips up and down to Wexford is a lot of trips," explained the Clare native. "There was one or two times last year, when the weather was really bad and I met four crashes on one day there, going up the dual carriageway, it was carnage. You do wonder at times, you're not getting back to 1 o'clock at night. You can get tired.

"I suppose I'm going into nearly year 30 at the top level. It's a lot of stuff, it's a lot of years."

One factor which helped sway him was the visit of the majority of the Wexford playing squad to his home in Clare, as they appealed for him to stay on.

"When you've a good few of them arrive down to your house, it was an easy enough decision at the end of the day," explained Fitzgerald.

"There's no way a manager can keep 36 guys happy. But in fairness, we get on very well. I was surprised to see them all come down. The lads that couldn't come down texted me.

"They knew that there was something else that I could have done besides managing the team. They just wanted to let me know how they felt."

One of the senior members of the squad, Lee Chin, also gave his version of events.

"We took it upon ourselves as players to really show him what he means to us," said the Faythe Harriers star. "We really appreciate him in Wexford and we love working with him.

"It was pretty much a spur of the moment kind of thing. Unfortunately, a couple of lads couldn't come down but we got the majority of the panel down to him. The rest of the guys did their bit by giving him a call or sending him a message to show their appreciation. It was just to reiterate what we said when we got down there and put their point across about what they want to see next year.

"We thought it's the least that we could have done it get down to see him and in some ways we wanted to sympathise with him: we understand his situation with travel and his other commitments and his own personal life.

"Obviously, we were being somewhat selfish in saying that, 'Look, we want you back.'

"I think Davy is the kind of man who would never commit to something that his heart is not in. This is why he's there. I don't think it's just for us going down to him. It probably pushed him towards that decision a little bit more and we're just grateful that he did."

Taking the long road from Wexford to Clare helped the team fully appreciated the lengths to which the former Banner goalkeeper goes.

"I've done the trip myself two or three times down to Clare in the last year and I wouldn't fancy doing it any more than that," said Chin.

"It says a lot about the man himself, his commitment levels; he never misses a session, he's always the earliest there and one of the last to leave. We had to take all that into consideration going down to see him, knowing that we were asking him to come back to face this kind of travel for another year.

"He's a serious professional in what he does and he'd never look at that as a hindrance on his performance when he gets to the training session with us - he's always Davy."

Chin feels there is unfinished business among the current group, and that they can take the next step next season.

"Davy Fitzgerald is a winner. In any county that he's managed in or even in his playing days, he's won. In colleges, he's won. I think Wexford is the only place he hasn't had any silverware yet. He will look at that being another challenge, a big challenge this year.

"It's something that we as a team, we know we are ready and capable of winning something and Davy is the man to drive us over that line."