Quirke believes GAA jumped the gun with Tier 2 model

New Laois manager Mike Quirke believes it would have been more prudent of GAA top-brass to wait for the report of the fixtures review taskforce rather than “parachuting in” a second-tier football championship.

Quirke is firmly in favour of an additional championship layer to cater for Division 4 teams and those in the bottom half of Division 3, but does not agree with how the new Tier 2 model, brought forward by Central Council to Special Congress, was rushed into existence.

The smarter move, said the new Laois boss, would have been to hold off until the fixtures review committee, established by GAA president John Horan earlier this year, published their recommendations to address the many inadequacies within the GAA calendar.

“I was a long time advocating for a second-tier championship, especially for the teams in Division 4 and the lower half of Division 3 who have little chance of progressing. You need something for them to aspire and aim towards. I still maintain we need that.

“But by parachuting it in the way it has been done, I am not sure it is the best way they could have done it, especially when there is a report to come from the fixtures review taskforce.

"They appear to be a very progressive, forward-thinking body in some of the recommendations they look like they’re going to bring.

It would have been nice to maybe hold tight, see what they come up with and then have a fuller picture with their options. That would have been the more prudent path to travel.

Laois won promotion from Division 3 this year so if Quirke can keep the county in Division 2 next spring they wouldn’t have to worry about any potential involvement in the new Tier 2 championship.

"Laois spent four seasons in the league’s second division between 2013 and 2016, suffering relegation three years ago when winning just one of their seven games.

“They are capable of staying in Division 2 but you are going to have to be better than you were last season to do so. Our first game is against Roscommon.

"Roscommon were playing Division 1 earlier this year and Laois were in Division 3 so that is a big jump in one calendar year to try and make up the difference. That is the challenge in the weeks and months ahead.

“We have the winners of Louth and Longford in a Leinster quarter-final. Win that and you are into a Leinster semi-final.

"You don’t know what side of the draw Dublin are on (Leinster semi-final pairings will be made after the quarter-finals) so who knows, you could find yourself in a Leinster final.

"Or you could get yourself knocked out and who knows where you could end up depending on your league position. Right now, the playing group - and who’s going to be part of that - is most important.”

The former Kerry footballer revealed he spoke with outgoing Laois boss and fellow Kingdom native John Sugrue before agreeing to take charge of a side who reached the last 12 of the championship in 2018 and 2019.

“I also chatted with William Harmon, who did good work with South Kerry, he was a selector up there with John. I was looking to find out why John wasn’t in the job any longer because, obviously, the project was going well during the two years he was there.

"I wanted to make sure I wasn’t walking into something that, potentially, wasn’t going to be a good situation. I was assured by both that absolutely wasn’t the case.

"They praised the players’ attitude and spoke well of the board. They didn’t dissuade me in any way, which was a big part of my decision.

“I got football committee chairman Laurence Phelan to send me footage of all the games Laois played this year. I wanted to make sure if this was something I was going to do that we could improve guys and then take it from there.

I was confident after watching the videos that they have a load of footballers and yet there was stuff you’d be hopeful you could improve on.

The commute from Tralee to the county’s centre of excellence adjacent to O’Moore Park is a four-hour round-trip but he’ll have for company each night with the man he brought in as head coach, Maurice Horan.

“It is gas. Some people were asking me was I going to move to Laois. Maurice is based down around Tralee. The two of us will hop in the car and with all the discussions we’ll be having about players and training, we’ll be up before we know it.

"You get a pile of your work done driving in the car. It is a mobile office.”