New Antrim manager Davy Fitzgerald is content that he made the right decision to leave Waterford.
Fitzgerald's departure came as a surprise after a 2024 campaign where a much improved Déise narrowly missed out on progression from the Munster round-robin.
Their season began on a dour note, relegated from Division One of the Allianz National Hurling League but Fitzgerald remained positive, insisting that the championship is where he should be judged.
They turned things around with a brilliant win over Cork in the new Walsh Park, bringing a great spark to the county.
They weren't to know it then but throwing away a four point injury time lead next time out against Tipperary ultimately proved fatal as they went onto lose narrowly to Clare and heavily to Limerick in the subsequent games.
The groundswell of opinion was that Fitzgerald would return for another year to build on these green shoots but it wasn't to be.
“I was pretty content that my decision (to leave Waterford) was the right decision,” he told Colm Keys in the Irish Independent today after agreeing to take over Antrim.
Speculation inevitably surrounded Fitzgerald's departure, given that it wasn't anticipated, but he says it was his call. He said he encouraged his successor Peter Queally to go for the job having brought him in as a selector, bringing a degree of continuity to the set-up with Tipperary's Eoin Kelly also involved again.
The Sixmilebridge native's long involvement in inter-county GAA continues with Antrim, committing for two years with the option of a third.
"People are looking for reasons for me about leaving Waterford, travel and everything.
“Everyone will try and make up reasons as to why I left Waterford. It doesn’t really matter why.
"It’s only my call, which I am entitled to make.
"I’m gone from caring what people think any more."
Fitzgerald is letting himself in for seven-hour-round-trips to Antrim but he said that the enthusiasm shown to him by Antrim chairman Seamus McMullan and co. was 'incredible.'
He has praised the work of former manager Darren Gleeson who retained Antrim's status in the Leinster championship for the last two years, having won the Joe McDonagh Cup in 2022. Fitzgerald says his target will be for a top three finish in Leinster during his tenure.
Despite being involved in inter-county GAA as either a player or a manager for almost his entire life, Fitzgerald says his passion hasn't waned.
“I’m not very old, I started young, which was the thing," he told Pat Nolan in the Mirror yesterday.
“100%, I was ok if I didn’t do anything for the next year or two.
"But when I did meet Seamus McMullan, the Antrim chairman, and the lads, their enthusiasm and their passion was just… you couldn’t bottle it. It was unreal."
That was how they pulled him back in.
