Davy doesn't deserve to be scorned for daring to dream big

SAFFRONS SUFFERING FROM MORE THAN HAVING A LEADER WHO WILL REACH FOR THE STARS

- GARRY DOYLE

THERE was a moment, somewhere in that hazy limbo between Thomas Frank walking out and Roberto De Zerbi walking in, when the internet did what it always does.

It reached for a cheap gag. Davy Fitzgerald, suited and booted, outside White Hart Lane. The punchline wrote itself: hurling's answer to Sam Allardyce. The emergency man. The fixer. The last throw of the dice when imagination runs dry.

Except it doesn't hold up. Not for a second.

Because Fitzgerald isn't that guy. Never has been.

Yes, he has moved around. Waterford. Clare. Wexford. Back to Waterford. Now Antrim. On the surface, it looks like the managerial carousel. Spin it often enough and people assume you enjoy the ride.

But Fitzgerald doesn't turn up for the spin. He turns up to change things.

And usually, he does.

Waterford hadn't seen an All-Ireland final in 45 years. He needed three months. Not three seasons, not a slow rebuild three months. Later, he delivered a Munster title. Only their ninth. They're still waiting for the tenth.

Clare? Five All-Irelands in their entire history. Fitzgerald's fingerprints are on three two as a player, one as a manager. League titles are just as scarce there. He picked up one of those, too.