Seán Quigley made his Fermanagh football debut in 2011 while he was still in school, cementing himself as an inter-county great over the following decade of highs, lows and utterly mad moments.
Always a bit rogue, Quigley enjoyed a maverick career, from being the league's highest scorer in 2015 all the way to a one-game ban and a €5000 fine for flicking off the tunnel lights in the Athletic Grounds.
Looking back on his career while on the GAA Social Podcast, old-school Quigley wasn't long showing where he got his reputation, recalling his reluctance at Fermanagh's bizarre attempts to professionalize the modern game.
You get nutritionists to come into teams and they haven't a clue about football, they don't follow football.
A couple of nutritionists came in a few years ago and they wanted to come down and spend the day with me and go shopping and cook a meal together... I was like 'absolutely no chance that your coming to my house to cook and we're not going to spend the day together ever', that's it.
He had absolutely no concept of who I was, he didn't play football he was just a nutritionist.
Given Quigley's reputation - a full pizza at 2 am once made up his pre-match meal - it's easy to see why a nutritionist may not have been his first choice, especially considering the pizza-fueled man-of-the-match performance in which he scored 2-8 against Laois.
Seán Quigley - Fermanagh Maverick
26 March 2023; Sean Quigley of Fermanagh during the Allianz Football League Division 3 match between Cavan and Fermanagh at Kingspan Breffni in Cavan. Photo by Matt Browne/Sportsfile
READ HERE: Fermanagh Star Gives Sad Summary Of Current Approach In Inter-County Football
Unsurprisingly, Quigley wasn't too keen on Fermanagh bringing in sports psychologists either.
A sports psychologist came in and they mightn't have an iota or clue about football, I switch off to that then.
We'd a sports psychologist a few years ago and we played Kildare down in Kildare and they beat us 4-14 to 0-14, four goals. On the Tuesday night he came in and he says 'if you take the four goals out of it it's a draw game' I thought that was the most stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life.
He was trying to convince us that if we took the four goals out of it we were every bit as good as Kildare, I was like we're not we got beat by twelve points
While Quigley clearly isn't too keen on some of the developments in the game, he gave plenty of credence to those professionals who went beyond their role with Fermanagh and knew plenty about football calling it 'more realistic'.
We'd a girl in a few years ago, Sharon Courtney from Monaghan, she was brilliant. Because she wasn't coming in saying you needed to do X, Y and Z...Sharon Courtney was a footballer, she lived and breathed it she knows what it takes and she was brilliant for me.
She was very good because she was a footballer and she knew the ins and outs of football.
Whatever your thoughts on all these roles in GAA, Seán Quigley's comments clearly evidence the professionalisation of the inter-county game.
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