Quigley: McGuinness comments ‘patronising’

Fermanagh’s Sean Quigley has accused former Donegal manager Jim McGuinness of ‘patronising’ the Erne County after suggesting they celebrated avoiding a heavy defeat to Dublin.

McGuinness stated in his Irish Times newspaper column that he was ‘spooked’ by the reaction of Fermanagh players whom he witnessed ‘hugging their family and friends’ after the spirited eight-point loss.

Powerful Quigley scored 0-8 overall and was central to Fermanagh’s strong second-half performance which included a controversial goal when he bundled goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton and the ball over the line.

But the Roslea man was angered by the apparent suggestion made byMcGuinness that Fermanagh were celebrating ‘getting beaten by eight points instead of 80 points’.

The reality, according to the full-forward, is that their players and fans were toasting the end of a breakthrough season that included Allianz League promotion and a first All-Ireland quarter-final appearance in 11 years.

“It’s a bit patronising because if I can recall one of the last All-Ireland quarter-finals that Jim McGuinness was involved in (against Mayo in 2013) they got beaten by 16 or 17 points,” said Quigley. “So it’s a wee bit patronising coming from him.

“And the fact that he’s a Donegal man, he’s not 100 miles away from Fermanagh, it’s a bit disappointing really. He needed 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 and the management and the players.”

“I just think the Fermanagh fans; 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. It was a credit to ourselves and a credit to our supporters that they stuck by us.

He added: “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 reached the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

“I guarantee you, if you’d predicted that at the start of the year to JimMcGuinness, he’d have laughed at you.”

Quigley said 2016 can’t come soon enough for Fermanagh who genuinely believe they can push on to claim a first ever Ulster title.