The former Waterford boss will relish the task of guiding the fortunes of his native Clare, writes KEITH DUGGAN

IF ANY cliché applies to Davy Fitzgerald, it is that he is not a man to do things by halves and that seemingly extends to his travel plans as well as his hurling life. Last month, he took a holiday to San Francisco and had no sooner returned home when he received a call inviting him to manage the 2011 team on the Opel GAA-GPA All Star tour in the same city.

“Never here before in my life and then I find myself here twice in a month,” he laughed, sitting in a hotel foyer. Outside, the sun shone and inside, Christmas songs played on a loop through the sound system. He was far away from the muddy training fields that await him with Clare but, in his mind, he is never far away from the game.

In his playing days, Fitzgerald was the quintessential Clare man and while he admits managing his native county will bring additional pressures, it is obvious he is still clearing the debris of his years with Waterford even as he embarks on a new chapter with his native county.

As he spoke about his last few seasons on the sideline, he still spoke about the Waterford team as “we” and his affection for the Deise players is still obvious.

He took on the Waterford job in a whirlwind of controversy, stepping in after Justin McCarthy was sensationally ousted and defying general expectation by guiding a supposedly spent team to the All-Ireland final of 2008. His return to Clare will gives him a chance to plan their progress in a more measured way.

“It is way different because I came into a Waterford team that was thought to be gone, done and dusted,” he said. “And there were big characters who had won Munster championships and people said they were gone and would be hard to manage. And I am proud that we kept them in the top four and won a Munster championship but we also introduced 20 new players. So I am happy the way we left them.

“With Clare, 85 per cent of the guys are under 24. That is the difference, like. You are dealing with guys who have won stuff and you had played against them. Now, you are going in and there isn’t too many Clare fellas who have managed teams to win Munster championships so maybe I have a bit more control and have managed at a high level and these guys have to step up to the mark.”

In his best and worst days, Fitzgerald has always been disarmingly honest about his emotions and is not afraid to acknowledge that the task of inter-county management is one of constant self-improvement.

He asked his father to get him tickets behind the Kilkenny bench for this year’s All-Ireland final because he wanted to watch one man as much as he wanted to watch the game himself.

“I have been managing teams since I was 19. I thought I knew it all! It took me a long time to figure out things. But the last three or four years taught me a lot about man management and delegating. I am happy that I have come along. And I am sure Brian Cody would say the same. He is a man I would respect.

“I asked my father to get me tickets behind him and the Kilkenny bench at the All-Ireland final. I just wanted to see different things and learn them. After 2008, I met Brian at an awards function and I said ‘make sure you don’t retire. I want to effin’ beat you at an All-Ireland’. So at this year’s final, I just wanted to see what his manner was like on the sideline, where he was focused, how he interacted with selectors. If I could pick up just one small thing, I would be delighted. And I did. But I’m not going to say what it is.”

When he was in San Francisco last month, Fitzgerald did the usual sight-seeing things but Clare was never far from his mind. He spent half his time just drawing up plans and working out a schedule for the year ahead. It wasn’t intentional, he just can’t help himself. His believes Clare are probably at number ten in the pecking order of hurling teams right now. Pushing them into the top four is his long-term ambition and he predicts it is going to be tough.

“All kinds of stuff. Like, I organised a little competition between the lads to keep them fit and the losing team does ‘X’ miles on the road. Just ideas to change things, breaking down each player to see how you can get the best out of each of them. You are trying to build a profile of each of them in your head. So I would be sitting down messing with stuff and looking at games – Waterford Crystal, league, championship and trying to work out when I want them.”

As he talks, conversation drifts back to the highs and lows of his days with Waterford and in particular to the seven-goal mauling at the hands of Tipperary in the Munster final last summer. The hurt he felt was obvious to anyone who saw his post-match interviews and is something that he will always carry with him.

“A dark hour! That still haunts me and I won’t let it go for a long time. Certain things on the field that day drove me nuts and still play on my mind and I will take that with me, it will drive me on for a few years. To explain the hurt after that – you can’t get that sick feeling out of your stomach.

“I can remember every second of how I felt for the next 72 hours and it wasn’t nice. I couldn’t sleep with the pain I had in my stomach because it was just a sickening pain. All your work for the year is gone and you would question yourself.”

But they bounced back with a restorative against-the-odds win against Galway and then a respectable semi-final defeat to Kilkenny. If he has any big regret, it is that Waterford didn’t hurl with the abandon they showed against Galway when they met Kilkenny.

“I don’t know what it was. We still weren’t bad against Kilkenny. We brought them back to a point or two after 30 minutes and conceded a goal just coming to half-time. But I still felt we played within ourselves. Against Galway, we just went out and before the lads even got to Thurles with the way the lads were on the bus. They were just . . . they wanted to redeem themselves. And my thing was: why couldn’t we go out against Kilkenny like that? F**k the fear! Nothing worse could happen to us than had already happened in the Munster final.

“But I would have nothing but respect for those guys. I had complete control of the team and they did anything that was asked.”

And now that he is back on home soil, the hope is that the response in Clare will be the same. Tomorrow afternoon, he takes charge of the All-Star team against the 2010 selection.

“I was delighted when I got the call. The manager of these things have normally won All-Irelands so to be asked to manage a team means I must be doing okay so I was thrilled at that. The best thing is you meet guys from other counties that you are battling non-stop.”