WHEN Clare champions Sixmilebridge were knocked out by Na Piarsaigh in the Munster club quarter-final last October it meant the end of a dream for another season.

But for Paidi Fitzpatrick, who captained his club to their 12th Clare championship in 2015, that loss to the eventual All-Ireland champions brought about the beginning of a new adventure.

We have seen the likes of Aidan O’Shea and Jackie Tyrrell try their hand at American sports in ‘The Toughest Trade’ but Fitzpatrick is doing it for real after signing his first contract as a professional lacrosse player.

The former Clare minor and U-21 decided to up sticks and move stateside after the club campaign ended. Fast-forward four months and he finds himself playing full-time lacrosse with the Longhorns – based in Austin, Texas.

He said: “It all happened very fast. It kind of happened by chance really.

“I came over and did a semester of college and then decided to play part-time while working in Austin.

“I gave it a go, they liked what they saw over the last few months, and I just got my first rookie contract the other day. I hadn’t really seen that coming at all.

“My team-mates and coaches are as surprised as I am that I’ve become accustomed to it without growing up with it.

“They would have all grown up with it and played it since an early age.”

Lacrosse is a full-contact sport with a small rubber ball and long-handled sticks that have a net attached.

The object is to work the ball into a small hockey-sized goal.

Fitzpatrick reckons there are similarities with hurling that have made it easy to adapt.

And having impressed in trials he hopes to make his competitive debut as the season gets up and running over the next month.

He added: “The hand-eye coordination is a big thing that I have from hurling and I suppose it’s a very rough-and-tumble contact sport as well.

“It’s fairly intense and the lads aren’t afraid to give stick. I gave a bit of stick to forwards playing as a back in hurling but you get plenty of it over here.

“There’s no going easy on the Irish guy – maybe when I had just started but not now.

“It’s about pushing now and trying to get into the team.

“You would have about 25/30 guys on the panel with 10 starters and rolling subs so I just have to get the head down and work towards that.”

Fitzpatrick lined out as a defender for the Sixmilebridge side that reached the 2013 Munster final and last year’s quarter-final.

He now finds himself trying to score goals rather than stop them in his new role.

Fitzpatrick said: “That is one of the other things people find so surprising.

“I’m playing as an attacker over here but I was a defender at home. In some ways I have a new-found sympathy for attackers in hurling.”

For Fitzpatrick and his Sixmilebridge team-mates defeat to Na Piarsaigh for the second time in three seasons was tough to swallow.

However he now sees it now as somewhat of a blessing in disguise.

The chance to experience a new culture while playing sport professionally was something he never dreamed of as a hurler.

He said: “People think of Texas as quite a conservative place but Austin is a bit less so than other places.

“It’s a really great city with a great mix of people and there’s a strong Irish community throughout Texas who have been great to me.

“I’m lucky here as well that the weather is nicer and the season is around April to August so it’s a relief not to be going through the muck of an Irish winter.

“The plan is to stick with this for the foreseeable future and see where it takes me.

“It’s kind of surreal but it’s been great so far – so it’s about cracking on now and seeing what happens.”