In the beginning, there was extra-time.
It took Wexford a total of 180 minutes to knock the crown off Clare's head in the 2014 qualifiers, and ultimately they were to gain more than the ephemeral title of Kingslayers. They won Davy.
Fitzgerald was on the touchline that day with Clare, and while adjusting to the lacerating whip of defeat, he couldn't help but notice the tide bursting around him, as Wexford fans chased their roars of jubilation down the terraces and onto the pitch.
Fitzgerald would always remember the result, but what also struck a chord was that wild, blood-squirting-through-your-veins passion that fidgeted across three hours of hurling, to the inevitable point of eruption.
That memory was among the primary factors in slashing Davy's proposed two-year break from hurling to a fortnight. Wexford's chairman, Dermot Devereaux sold the idea to a willing buyer. Wexford landed its biggest coup since Saving Private Ryan.
*****
Less than three years on, Wexford Park had another of Those Evenings. This time, however, Davy Fitzgerald was just about the only person connected with Wexford not to make it onto the field, limited as he was by his lone incursion in Thurles.
South East Radio's Liam Spratt spotted Davy stagger out of his box at the back of the stand, dazed by the sheer, familiar madness of it all. Spratt tells Balls that he "would have been remiss" not to thrust a microphone beneath his nose. "I had nothing planned, but most of the best things are unplanned". Preach, Davy. Preach.
Liam Spratt: Davy Fitzgerald is standing on a chair beside us, waving to fans. You can't talk, can you? I don't care if there's a ban. Say something. Say something to the people of Wexford.
Davy Fitzgerald: I'm so happy for the people of Wexford. They deserve it. That was heart and guts.
Now Wexford are bound for a first Leinster final since 2008, with a fevered band of pilgrims in pursuit: more than 30,000 tickets have been sold, more than the entire attendance at last year's final.
It doesn't take much to stir the Wexford passion for hurling, but Davy has a particular talent for such alchemy. He has made the harnessing of the crowd one of his primary objectives since taking over. Spratt says that Fitzgerald's consistent message to the supporters has been some variation on "chill the beans", but he has also been effusive: this after the first league win of the year:
Please God, they’ll stay like that because it actually helped us get over the line, it was brilliant. They were phenomenal and the players responded to them, without a shadow of a doubt.
Like a kind of Gaelic Simeone, Fitzgerald has been conducting them all year. If such a character as Davy Fitz didn't exist, Wexford would have to make him up. So unsurprisingly, he has an agreeable congregation, according to Spratt:
Wexford have mad supporters, so to be back in a Leinster final for the first time in nine years, and to have a realistic chance of winning it, is unbelievabe. I think there were 30,000 tickets sold up to yesterday It's going to be a massive crowd, I'd say.
Ironically, the fact he was in the box the other day probably helped, in that he was around the place after.
There's a massive buzz around the place. Wexford's a big county; 150,000 population. It's the biggest county, area-wise, in Leinster, and hurling is what really gets the blood flowing.
The Wexford fans respond to Davy. When he stepped onto the pitch [in Thurles], he knew what he was doing. The team needed a lift, and he took a hit on that.
But when the Wexford hurlers are going well, no matter what sort you're involved in, or you're of another religious persuasion, everyone switches on to it.
It's a remarkable county that way. It's a tourist county, has a reputation for being a very friendly county, and it has that reputation. I think it's wonderful for the game.
As Spratt concedes, however, "all of that is grand when you're winning games". He admits that Davy has wondered what will happen if they lose a game, but when Kilkenny have been beaten twice in three months, such rationality is a waste of good times.
There is, of course, more to the success than the kinship for hurling. Training has been characteristically tough: Wexford trained for all but two days in January, but Fitzgerald asks as much of those around him: he demanded 160 balls from the Wexford County Board for the first training session. "They nearly had a seizure", reflects Fitzgerald.
But for the manic intensity of training, Spratt points to the relaxed atmosphere around the camp once the business of training has been completed: the players are open and engaging, with Davy often sitting down for dinner with Banty, to chew over food and other, less heretical notions than football.
There is a coolness among the players in the cauldron, too: while the Kilkenny victory was founded on a ferocious desire and work-rate, they kept their cool when Kilkenny clawed the deficit back to a single point. Wexford kicked 0n, most notably Lee Chin, who ruled the skies and ended the game by racking up 20-odd possessions in one of the finest individual performances of the year.
Fitzgerald has pedigree at his disposal: the talents of Chin, Conor McDonald, and Jack Guiney are undisputed, but many of this side has experience of winning, too, having put together three Leinster Under-21 titles in a row between 2013 and 2015.
On Sunday, there will also be an edge of revenge: a Wexford minor team featuring Mark Fanning, Andrew Shore, Shane Tomkins, Matthew O'Hanlon, Shaun Murphy, Diarmuid O'Keeffe and Harry Keogh lost an All-Ireland semi-final to Galway, in spite of the Tribesmen ending the game with 13 men.
Fitzgerald has never been shy about talking up the quality of his players. The most recent example came just this week. When asked if he knew just how good his players are:
I would love to fucking tell you I knew exactly. I had a feeling. I had seen certain things in them and I thought there might be more there, but I wasn't sure... you don't know until you go in there. You don't know.
The way they worked for me from day one, they got a fair shock the first night when they went in for training, and they saw the intensity that I wanted.
Spratt says that Fitzgerald has been throwing about the idea in training that Galway don't rate Wexford, and regardless of how true that is, Wexford won't want for motivation: at stake is an All-Ireland semi-final, and above all, a general delirium that will float them there, and perhaps further.
While many expect Fitzgerald to stay in the stands in Croke Park, Spratt's hunch is that he won't be able to keep away from the sideline for too long.
But something has stirred in the South East: Davy believes in his players, the players believe in Davy, and the Wexford fans have found something to believe in.
Who knows how it will end.
