THE WEXFORD PLAYERS may not be the quickest to respond to messages from the management in their team Whatsapp group, but this time was different.
When Davy Fitzgerald made the decision to commit to stay in charge of the Model County, his first port of call was to let the squad know the news before it was announced.
The All-Ireland winning player and manager had been weighing up the demands of another season making the taxing cross-country journeys from Sixmilebridge to Wexford three times a week.
“He put it in the Whatsapp group and let us know well in advance (of it becoming public),” recalls forward Rory O’Connor. “Great message, it was refreshing to see.
“I think it was the first time lads responded to a Whatsapp message straight away I’d say!”
“If you were looking for numbers for a game or something…there was no-one ignoring the message (this time). Once that message went out, the news was broke.
“If there ever was another man to bring us another step again it’s certainly going to be himself. We’re all delighted to have him back. He’s done massive work in the last three years and got us to climb the Hogan steps. There’s a refreshing element going into this year too.
“He’ll be eager to get back,” he added.
Despite media speculation that he was considering jumping ship to take charge of Galway – which Fitzgerald himself later denied – O’Connor said the players had no concerns he was going to replace Micheál Donoghue.
“We know Davy so well. Unfortunately whatever you read and see you just can’t believe until you hear it from the horse’s mouth.
“So I didn’t even need to ask him, I knew well that that wasn’t being negotiated or being dealt with. Look, hearing it will cause upset and people will hear it and they’ll spread it and then it will become even bigger and bigger.
“As players we knew that if he wasn’t going to come back to us he wasn’t going to do anything at all, he was going to take a year out.”
Fitzgerald has added former Clare defender Brendan Bugler to the Leinster champions’ backroom team, replacing Stephen Molumphy who moved to Waterford as a selector.
“It’s great to have a (former) player that’s just recently retired,” said O’Connor.
“We had Stephen Molomphy, he’s actually gone to Waterford this year. But he helped out with the forwards and even his talks one-on-one, it was fresh, it was as if he was just after playing a game in that kind of sense.
“So I’m sure Brendan is going to bring the exact same enthusiasm. Even talking to him he seems like a born winner already and he’s fully behind the whole wheel.
“(Davy) coached this fella to win an All-Ireland and he was one of his leading guys.”
O’Connor was pipped to the Young Hurler of the Year by Kilkenny’s Adrian Mullen last week but he was thrilled to see team-mates Diarmuid O’Keeffe and Lee Chin pick up their first All-Stars.
“The last All-Star was 2004 I think. To see the two lads with two little gongs is just amazing. To have eight Wexford players there in total is just something new.
“I know over the last couple of years there’s been maybe two or three lads going or two lads being nominated, but never actually winning something.
“For Dee-O (Diarmuid O’Keeffe) it was a matter of time really, especially if you’ve ever talked to Dee-O he’s just to the point, he gives everything to Wexford hurling.
“And then for Lee, what a leader and the way he plays. He’s the force behind us and how well we got on this year so it couldn’t have happened to two better lads.”
O’Connor is busy in club action with St Martin’s, who face Ballyhale Shamrocks in the Leinster club SHC semi-final on Sunday week, while he’s also got a couple of upcoming trips with the county side on the horizon.
“We have a couple of things to look forward to. We’ve got the Super 11s to look forward to and we’re going down to Orlando (on their team holiday) for a few days to enjoy ourselves. I’d say after that we’ll probably look to get back to doing a bit of work for the league.”
The 21-year-old says trips abroad help bring the group even closer together.
“Yeah like in the championship this year, the hurling games especially they come down to a point or two points, that doesn’t reflect on how many sprints you’ve done in January or how many shots you took on your own.
“It kind of comes down to the little things that people don’t see such as these team holidays or such as Davy bringing in little Michael (O’Brien) back in the league.
“Those little bits would give you the edge in that sense to win those tight championship games and certainly a team holiday in reward of winning a Leinster final is something we’ll look forward to and having the craic.”
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