Saffrons lost to Kildare in Newbridge<\/a> on Sunday to leave them with no points from their three Allianz Hurling League Division 1B games so far.<\/p>\nWith clashes against Dublin and an in-form Carlow side to come, as well as fellow strugglers Down, the Ulstermen are definitely in a battle to stay in the second tier of the league.<\/p>\n
The poor start to 2026 follows on from last year, when they were relegated from the Leinster Championship.<\/p>\n
\n
Fitzgerald made the move north off the back of delivering one of the two Leinster titles that Wexford have won in the last 30 years. Before that, he delivered a first All-Ireland title in 16 years for his native Clare in 2013, while he also managed Waterford twice, bringing them to a first All-Ireland final in 45 years.<\/p>\n
The hope for the Gaels in the Glens of Antrim was that Fitzgerald would be able to bring the county to the next level, but that hasn’t happened as the second year of his reign continues.<\/p>\n
While it’s still very early in the year, relegation to the third tier of the league would be a blow to hurling in the county, whichever way you spin it.<\/p>\n
This flatness in Antrim has led McGrath to question Fitzgerald’s future, with the red card for Jack McCloskey in Newbridge a reflection of the frustrations that the players are feeling.<\/p>\n
“Antrim, they didn’t perform,” McGrath said bluntly.<\/p>\n
“They looked devoid of a structure, of a game plan, of a way of playing. And they just seemed dejected after it.<\/p>\n
“It was emphasised by the red card right at the end. That is just a ‘pure frustration’ red card, nothing else.<\/p>\n
“That’s not someone who’s thick with that particular person. That is just, ‘I’m so frustrated with what’s happening here today’. That’s what those red cards are.<\/p>\n
“The worry now for Antrim is where did we go now? Maybe Davy is feeling he’s taken him so far, he can’t take them any further.<\/p>\n
“That’s just my honest opinion. Maybe that’s the way it is. Maybe that’s the way a lot of Antrim hurling people are thinking today.<\/p>\n
“What needs to change? Is it the players? Is it the set-up?<\/p>\n
“I don’t know what it is, but there’ll be a lot of hard questions asked tonight at training in Antrim.”<\/p>\n
Watch Kerry v Galway in the Allianz Football League on Saturday from 4.30pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player. Follow a live blog on the RT\u00c9 News App and on rte.ie\/sport. Listen to Saturday Sport on RT\u00c9 Radio 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shane McGrath was left wondering whether Davy Fitzgerald and Antrim have reached the end of the road on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-290237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}