Davy Fitzgerald was offering no excuses after Clare's defeat to Waterford in the opening round of the Allianz Hurling League.

The recently-crowned Waterford Crystal Cup winners lost to a last-gasp Jake Dillon free, which was conceded by Brendan Bugler.

"It was a free and we have no complaints about that," the Banner boss conceded in the Clare Champion.

"He (referee John Sexton) should have blown it up about five seconds earlier but I am not going to say anything about the referee. I thought he did a fairly good job. He was honest. Maybe he could have blown it up a bit earlier but that's the way things go and we lost by a point. It's not that we got hammered.

"We gave them seven points from mistakes. We weren't as aggressive as we should have been, but it's important to point out that Waterford were good and aggressive on the ball and got some great scores."

He added: "Waterford will say that they had bad wides also. It's the first round of the league and we were beaten and it's not a nice place to be." Tweet

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