Fireworks expected. Raised voices and wild-eyed fervour, surely, with a fair amount of finger-pointing.

Then who’s the calm, rational character sitting across the table in a county Clare golf club? The four pensioners cackling in the corner over their tea and scones are making more noise, but presumptions about Fitzgerald have always outstripped the reality.

“This thing about acting crazy on the sideline,” says the Wexford hurling manager as a starter.

“What I’d love is for a TV camera to be on me for the whole of a game. You could see over the 70 or 80 minutes I’m not going crazy, roaring and shouting.

“Do I get passionate, do I have to shout in my instructions? Of course I do. If it’s a game with 40,000 people there then you have to shout to get your point across.

“But it’s not for the whole of the game, start to finish. There’s a few other lads could be miked up for television and you’d hear a few things.”

Brian Cody is often impassive on the sidelines, though.

“He’s well able to make his point, don’t worry.”

Liam Sheedy, “another man who can be heard along the sideline.”

The Sixmilebridge man is grinning as he talks, however. We’re sitting down on the occasion of the release of his new autobiography, At All Costs (Gill and MacMillan), which he co-wrote with Vincent Hogan. As you’d expect, there’s plenty of fire: opponents and teammates alike aren’t spared the lash at times.

Neither is the protagonist. Fitzgerald is open about mistakes and miscalculations he’s made himself on the sideline and off, but first off, he’s already written one autobiography (Passion And Pride, which came out in 2005).

Why another volume?

“It’s been almost 15 years, there’s been a lot happened in that time. Waterford, Clare, Wexford, the heart, the television.

“To be honest, I hadn’t given it too much thought, but when I was approached I considered it and said I would. And having Vincent along helped a huge amount — the work he put into it was unreal. He researched every little thing.”

And there were a fair amount of things to research. Since his last book Fitzgerald managed Waterford and Clare to All-Ireland senior finals, launched a successful TV series, survived two heart scares, and took over as manager in Wexford.

Take those health scares. Almost a decade ago Fitzgerald had stents fitted, and two years ago he had another fright.

“It’s funny in one way, the most recent one, because the night before I was helping to park cars at a funeral, of all things.

“It was two years ago and the funeral was for Geraldine Crehan, a great neighbour of ours who had passed away from a heart attack, and while I was out on the road directing the cars this way and that I remember telling some of the other lads, ‘ye need to take care of yourselves, your health is so important’. I’d say they were sick of hearing it from me.

“That was fine until I got a funny feeling, a kind of a tightness in my throat. Not my chest, or anything like that, just a kind of tightness. And for a while I thought I was hungry, I said I’d head back in home and have something to eat.

“I tried, but I could barely eat anything. So I said to Colm (son) and his pal Bomber, ‘I’m not feeling great’, and I could see the look on their faces that it was a bit of a shock to them.”

He went to the doctor, was sent to Galway and it soon emerged he had a 98% blockage of the artery.

“It’s something I’m conscious of, obviously, because there’s a family history to it as well. My mother had brothers who died before they were 40 years of age from heart disease. So I’d always be aware of it.

“The previous scare I had, by the way, wasn’t a case of the classic pain across the chest either. That was in 2009, and I felt a kind of tightness across my back, and when I got worried about it I went to the doctor.

“They eventually found a 95% blockage and I got stents put in, which was grand, but the point I’m making is that people, and men in particular, need to listen to their bodies.

“I don’t think because I played sport that I’m necessarily any better at picking up on something wrong with me, but I think a lot of people take the attitude, ‘ah it’s nothing, it’ll pass’. And maybe it is nothing most of the time. But if you’re worried about a particular issue, you should get it checked out.

“If people take anything out of this, or the book, it’s that — never be conscious or shy about getting your health worries checked out, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.”

He’s frank about his own worries. Before he got the stents inserted back in 2009 he could hardly sleep: “I was sent home for a week before that operation and it was the longest week of my life. I was so worried I couldn’t sleep a wink, I’d be walking around the house in the middle of the night.

“Basically, I was almost afraid to close my eyes. I’m not ashamed to say that I’m afraid of dying. I think most people are. And it does come into my head that, with my medical history something could happen, it does of course.”

Has it changed him, that kind of close call?

“I don’t know about changing me. Something like that would be on your mind, of course it would. Am I more religious because of it? That depends. Do I go to Mass regularly? No. Do I go into church every now and then? Yes.

“What I do a lot — an awful lot — is that I talk to Fr Harry (Bohan). That’s a huge help to me. I don’t know how good it is for him, though!”

The Sixmilebridge native is now almost as well known around the country for his TV series, Ireland’s Fittest Family.

In it, Fitzgerald and other well-known Irish sportspeople coach families through a series of fitness challenges.

“It’s great, very enjoyable,” he says of the show.

“It’s hard work, which a lot of people don’t realise. You’re talking about 12, 14-hour days, there are things that don’t work out and stuff has to be done over and over, the families might be wet and cold and standing around . . . but it’s great to see the energy and the commitment of the families involved, the teamwork.

“The other team leaders . . .”

Who all seem to be from Cork by the way...

“. . . I know, we’ll have to change that up. Donncha O’Callaghan is a great guy, I’m delighted I’ve gotten to know him.

“He’s a very interesting guy on sport, obviously, and I love picking his brain for bits and pieces that I can bring back to my teams, he played for so long and at such a high level.

“But in the show itself he’s a savage. Hugely competitive. When we get up and running he’ll do anything to win, which isn’t surprising because he’s been trying to win games every day of his life.

“People have this image of Donncha as a big, happy guy, which he is, but he’s also desperate to win all the time.

“The same goes for the others. Derval O’Rourke is great to come up with tactics and strategies, she’s always thinking ahead about how to get her team around the course as fast as possible. A winner.

“Anna Geary is a bit like Donncha, very pleasant, all smiles, until the show gets started, and then she’ll do anything to get her team to the top.

“In fairness, we’ve been very lucky over the years with the team leaders we’ve had, Alan Quinlan, Kenny Egan, all of them have been outstanding. And it’s been great that you have an audience of people watching ordinary families push themselves and do something healthy.

“It’s about being fit and trying to do something physical, but I think it’s also good to see families having to come together to solve problems and help each other.

“You can see that over the course of the competition, how they work for each other, which is a great example for people.”

Alright. Talk hurling for a while.

“Work away.”

Where’s the game at now?

“Hurling is in an unbelievable place now. Look at the summer we just had, the games we saw. You couldn’t but be looking forward to next summer, Liam Sheedy back with Tipperary, Limerick defending the All-Ireland. Kilkenny gone away to rebuild. Paraic Fanning coming in for Waterford, Galway, Cork, Dublin, Clare. Ourselves.”

But what about the negativity about tactics, negativity which often centres on a former Clare goalkeeper’s approach to the game?

“This makes me laugh. Absolutely.

“First, you’re talking about analysis, right? But how much analysis is there, really? Most of the time analysis is down to ‘this is terrible, look at this crowd, they’re playing a sweeper, that’s not good for the game.’

“And that’s when the analysis isn’t just blaming one person for all the problems of the game, which you’d often hear as well. That’s something I’d hope to see turn around, the personal criticism of people, and I believe it will turn around in time.

“But as for tactics, and people who appreciate what’s going on . . . I remember when I brought Dónal Óg Cusack into the Clare set-up, it was because he wasn’t doing that ‘sweepers are terrible’ stuff when he was on the television. Rather than just saying ‘Clare have a sweeper’, he could point out what we were doing tactically in each game — and how we were changing in each game. I think he’s an outstanding analyst.

“That’s something I think very few people watching a game pick up on, the changes that go on in the middle of a game. If a player goes back the field before the throw-in, that’s clear to everybody, but not the way a team’s line-up changes during a game.

“For instance, people are obsessed with sweepers, or with finding sweepers. But very few people will point out that a team has pulled players back the field to protect its defence.

“Another point I’d always make comes down to common sense. There are teams which can’t beat some opponents if they play 15 on 15. Everyone knows that.”

“So are they just supposed to line out 15 on 15, the usual way, in order for the other crowd to beat them? That makes no sense to me, but that’s what it means when you hear people giving out because a team won’t let itself be hammered.”

The new book covers the other places he’s seen since hanging up his hurley. The whirlwind tour of duty in Waterford, where he steered a team with many old foes to a first All-Ireland in 45 years, and the sensational against-all-odds All-Ireland title for Clare in 2013.

Now he’s in Wexford.

“What I’ll say about Wexford is that it’s been great in that it’s been so positive. Even in Clare there was criticism, which is something I’d expect, your own are always hardest on you.

“But in Wexford it’s been great. The players have bought into it, the board, the supporters — everyone is on board with what we’re trying to do.

“We’ve had a couple of very good days, and we’ve had a few days when things have gone against us, but I enjoy every trip down there. It’s a three-hour spin in the car but I’d usually have a couple of lads in for the spin, one lad in his twenties and one in his eighties. We stop in Birdhill to fill the car up and get a coffee or whatever and off we go.

“Down for five, back around one in the morning, but I love it. Wexford has been fantastic. I’d describe the team as a 100% team. Everything they do, they do at one 100%.”

There are other plans in the pipeline, bubbling away. Before we part he talks about the need for GAA clubs to become more active in combating drugs. His logic is that the cohort of people GAA clubs draw from most — the young — are most vulnerable to drugs, and GAA clubs are best placed for positive intervention.

When I ask whether it’s unfair to expect voluntary organisations to do work that should be done by, or at least supported by, the government, his answer is simple: “There’s a chance to do more, to be more. Why wouldn’t we want to do that?”

Davy in a nutshell.