Seán Quigley believes that Jim McGuinnes is being “a wee bit patronising” of Fermanagh when questioning the apparent celebration of their eight-point defeat to Dublin in last Sunday’s All-Ireland football quarter-final.
In his Irish Times column on Tuesday, the former Donegal manager feared for the culture of mediocrity in the game, and wrote the scenes of Fermanagh fans celebrating the eight-point defeat had "spooked" him.
Yet for Quigley – who scored 0-8 on Sunday, and also forced Dublin goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton to concede a clearly illegitimate goal – McGuinness appears to have missed the point.
“I think to be fair to Jim, it’s just something for him to put in the paper,” says Quigley.
A credit
“The fact that Fermanagh fans were celebrating was a credit to them. We were not expected to get anywhere near Dublin. Like, there wasn’t much talk of Kildare getting hammered by Kerry the way they did.
“The whole talk has been of Fermanagh ‘celebrating defeat’. In no way were we celebrating getting beaten. We were celebrating the fantastic year that we’ve had. I just think that the Fermanagh fans like the sense of pride that they had in us, after seeing the way we played, against the best team in the country. The fact that we thwarted them right to the end was a credit to ourselves and a credit to our supporters that they stuck by us.
“I think it has been talked up that we were celebrating getting beaten by eight points, instead of 80 points. Absolutely not. We were celebrating the fact that we got promotion, we got a great run in the championship and we got to an All-Ireland quarter-final. And which, I guarantee you, if you’d predicted that at the start of the year to Jim McGuinness, he’d have laughed at you. So it’s a wee bit patronising, coming from him.”
Bit disappointing
Quigley also pointed to Donegal’s 16-point defeat to Mayo in the 2013 All-Ireland quarter-final, under McGuinness.
“And the fact that he’s a Donegal man, he’s not 100 miles away from Fermanagh, it’s a bit disappointing really. He needs to realise that we were going up with no-one giving us a hope, the only people that believed in us were the Fermanagh fans, the management and players.”
Quigley, who is already looking ahead to 2015, also admits that the goal he forced Dublin to concede should never have been allowed.
“I knew when the referee hadn’t given a free out, and he stopped the game, then all he could do was award the goal, to be fair. It was a mistake on his part, and maybe the umpire’s part. As I said during the week, a little luck like that the smaller teams don’t often get at Croke Park. It lifted the game and gave us something to work towards and lifted the whole Fermanagh crowd. It even got the Dubs going as well.”
“We’re going to try and give Division Two a good rattle, stay in Division Two hopefully, and then go for an Ulster title. I think it’s well within our means, to push on and win an Ulster title for the first time.”
