Shaun Murphy hailed “pure winner” Davy Fitzgerald after he inspired Wexford’s first Leinster title in 15 years.
Murphy credited the Clare man with infusing Wexford with the belief that they could compete for top honours as they now look forward to a first All-Ireland semi-final since 2007.
The defender said: “Ah he’s just a pure winner. Whether it’s hurling or cards or table tennis, he just wants to win.
“You could be on weekends away and it could be cards or it could be table tennis or whatever it’d be and it’d winner-stays-on and Davy comes on board and it’s a tournament, like. You have to win it. And he instils that into us.
“We’ve been craving that success over the last while and I suppose he’s won it as a player and as a manager and when he tells us we’re good enough, you believe him.”
Fitzgerald himself said that the achievement ranks alongside any other from his glittering career.
He said: “The emotion, it feels exactly the same for me as it’s felt every time you’ve achieved something, whether it be winning with Clare as a player or a manager, winning with Waterford, I’m just so happy to see them boys so happy. If I told you some of the stuff they told me at the final whistle, it makes it so worthwhile.
“Our psyche today coming was, there’s a lot of people who are ill, there’s a lot of people who can’t do stuff, my philosophy on life is when you get an opportunity to go out in Croke Park and play, you let go and you play.
“We would bring a lot of people in around us who aren’t as fortunate.
“You take young Michael (O’Brien) from Kerry who came into us this year, if you saw the speech he gave before the Tipperary game.
“The boys all thought I put him up to it but I didn’t say a word to him. he said to them that it was about time they started living their dream – this is a young guy who is blind. It actually registered big time with the lads.”
Kilkenny boss Brian Cody questioned some of the decisions by referee John Keenan, saying: “Colin (Fennelly) would feel when he was in there a few times that he was very obviously being… finding it very difficult to get away, whatever way it was being done.
“I don’t want to start focusing on the referee at this stage.”
Cody added: “We probably had a few chances for points, and a point was a huge score today really. It was a one-score game at the end of the day. But look, the players worked very very hard, played with determination right through, played some great hurling.”
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