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Davy Fitzgerald during yesterday's game. Donall Farmer/INPHO
Get The Suncream Out

“We won't be throwing the legs up and enjoying the sun", says Davy as Clare head to Portugal

The Banner are bound for Portugal for a warm weather training camp this week.

CLARE BOSS DAVY Fitzgerald won’t be letting his players enjoy the sun as the All-Ireland winners head to Portugal on Wednesday for a warm-weather training camp.

The focus shifts to championship for Clare following yesterday’s league semi-final loss to Tipperary with the time abroad kickstarting their preparations as they have tapered down their training in recent weeks.

“We won’t be throwing the legs up and enjoying the sun anyway,” laughed Fitzgerald after yesterday’s game. “We’ve five days there and there’ll be four days of training. That’s no harm. We haven’t done much the last three weeks.

“I felt after the Laois game, they were very stale. We’ve probably trained hard four times in three weeks. We’re going away on Wednesday. I think a week and a half after we come back, they’re in club championship. That won’t be a bad thing either.”

Clare will not enter the championship arena until June 15th against Cork or Waterford with Fitzgerald outlining the workload they face before then. He is still pleased at the outcome of a league that he had envisaged would culminate in staving off the drop.

“I’m happy. I’d visions that we’d be fighting relegation. You could see towards the end today that they wanted to go but they just couldn’t find the gears. Before the league started I said it had been a massive six or seven months. I knew it was going to take its toll.

“We’ll make sure now we do that bit extra to get ready for Cork or Waterford. That won’t be easy. There is definitely areas we have to work on. We won’t be in the top three to four with a performance like that in the championship. We know that.”

Davy Fitzgerald and Eamon O'Shea at the end of the game Davy Fitzgerald shakes hands with Eamon O'Shea. Donall Farmer / INPHO Donall Farmer / INPHO / INPHO

Fitzgerald saluted Tipperary’s ‘awesome’ display in the wake of this defeat although he had qualms with the free count against his side.

“Tipperary had the bite and drive today, you could see that. Everyone out there knows the second goal for Tipp was a free for Clare. 100 per cent, that was when the momentum went in their favour.

“It would be very interesting to look back at the scoreable frees they got. I think they got 16 and we got eight, and we got two of them on the sideline at the very end. That says a lot too.

“But if I’m totally honest I thought Tipperary were awesome. Their use of the ball, their scores were unbelievable. Tipp are going to be a serious team come the championship. That is what I learned outside there today.

“They were telling me during the week that Tipp are in trouble. If they are with scores like that and a performance like that, fair play to them.”

Tipperary outgun Clare to set up Kilkenny rematch

21 of our favourite pictures from this weekend’s GAA action

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