THERE was a certain symmetry to the majesty of Sean Quigley’s performance against Laois on Saturday.
It was into the ear of Laois’ one-time full-back Denis Booth that Quigley told his infamous pizza story.
On the off-chance you’re not sure of it, here’s the abridged version.
2014 qualifier down in Portlaoise. Warm, breezy, summer’s afternoon. The hosts escape by a point but Quigley wins man-of-the-match, scoring 2-8.
He’d have reminded you of Ronnie O’Sullivan that day, bored playing off the right side so he switches to the left so effortlessly that you nearly wouldn’t notice.
Booth struck up a conversation about preparation during the game, leading to Quigley’s revelation that he’d got into the car at 2am that morning and gone to Pizza D’Or in Monaghan town to pick up a feed.
Halfway through eating it he thought he maybe shouldn’t be at it and left it, but when he got up again for a drink at 4am, he polished off the remains.
In an interview with The Irish Times in 2016, Quigley underlined his approach at the time.
“Look, I am not fussy at all about my diet. I think it’s not hard to tell that at times.
“Now, I don’t eat complete rubbish before matches. Don’t be thinking that. People would have their own ideas about me and that’s fair enough.
“At the end of the day, I’m not walking around the house eating a piece of lettuce. I don’t keep a lump of celery in the car. I’m not into stuff like that.
“When I go home this evening, my mother will probably have cooked dinner and whatever it is, I’m going to eat it. I’m not going to ask her how many calories are in it or what’s the protein content. I’m not that sort of a fella.”
Even as recently as twelve months ago, he talked of how, despite his change in physique, he never wants to be the “serious county man, walking around with a two-litre bottle of water in my hand all the time, I hope I never become like that. I don't think I will!"
Some would argue that attitude has held him back. Others would contest that he’s done just fine.
He was close to an Allstar when Fermanagh reached an All-Ireland quarter-final in 2015 and in an era when his brother Seamus and Tomás Corrigan made shapes, Sean Quigley has been their most reliable and consistent source of scores.
But it’s the everyman cut of him that makes him stand out.
In a world awash with forwards whose motherboards have been reconditioned to catch up to the modern game, Quigley’s brain is like the latest Intel core processor, only for years it was held captive inside a Windows 97 PC.
The body would let the brain down at times.
As he strode from the huddle beneath the Enniskillen sunshine on Saturday afternoon, everything below ‘Tracey Concrete’ on the new-look green jersey hung loose from him.
Put a picture of 2014 Sean Quigley beside a picture of 2022 Sean Quigley beside each other and you’d tell they’re related, but you wouldn’t put them for the same man.
The beard’s been trimmed in, the hair has tousled and receded a bit, but the face is thinner and the torso is leaner now.
Yet the pillars of what he is are as old as the coliseum – finishing, passing, vision.
You could almost see his eyes lighting up as rookie James Kelly came in to mark him on the weekend.
Kelly was all energy, bombing up and down the pitch, but when it came to their primary jobs, Quigley won hands down.
For his goal, the Roslea man sensed the young defender over-committing and just put his body between man and ball. Kelly tumbles over the outstretched leg, no whistle, and Quigley is gone.
Ciaran Corrigan is coming in at the far post but the square ball isn’t on. Not that Matthew Byron in the Laois goal knows it, and Quigley knows that he doesn’t know. Shapes to square it, ‘keeper moves across, swings the hips again and puts the ball into the big gap left at the near post.
It was his first score from play that set him up for the day. In tight to goal, he makes three different runs, and then the right one just when Corrigan is ready to feed him the ball. Without a glance, with no angle at all on the wrong side for a right-footer, he splits the posts.
His best was just before half-time, coming on to the ball going away from goal, 40 yards out. No look again, just turn and hit, up over the attempted block of Kelly.
When the more experienced Trevor Collins came in to him for the second half, it made no difference. All that changed was what Sean Quigley did with the ball.
It’s a pity there were no cameras in Brewster Park to see the way in which he toyed with Laois’ defence. His range of passing, off both feet, was just sublime.
Twice he cut Laois right open, putting Conal Jones away with a backspinning left-footed crossfield ball, then assessing Josh Largo Ellis’ run in behind in a heartbeat, dropping the ball completely blind over the top to put the young wing man in on goal.
Under Rory Gallagher, he’d spent afternoons trying to operate from somewhere far too close to wing-back.
Gallagher had a system that was hugely effective for Fermanagh, taking them to an Ulster final and the brink of Division One.
It was through smiling eyes just three days ago that Quigley recalled the way they’d scratched and clawed the faces of bigger names in that time.
“You’d want to be playing sexy football in summer no bother, but you have to adapt. There’s games gone by here we’ve put 15 behind the ball and dogged it out. I get as much out of doing that,” he said.
“We played Kildare here a few years ago and won 0-8 to 0-6, and that was as good as winning 0-20 to 0-6. It was absolutely dire stuff but we were within a kick of Division One football.
“It’s nice to kick 3-15 but realistically, you’re not gonna do that every day.”
Yet drained by the experience, he had opted out at the beginning of 2020.
“I wasn’t fit, I wasn’t in good shape,” he told this parish’s Neil Loughran last year.
“Simply put, I had no motivation to be there, I had no real interest in being there – I didn’t want to be there… it’s hard to say why.
“Don’t get me wrong, you always love playing for Fermanagh, I always enjoy playing the games, but when you’re packing the bag and putting it in the boot of the car at seven o’clock in the morning and not seeing home until 11 at night, eventually that takes its toll.”
Fermanagh are so reliant on him and with Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher’s watchful eyes having seen it in the flesh at the weekend, every checkpoint he tries to get near in April will be heavily manned, with Padraig Hampsey heading the queue.
That’s the reality for all top forwards now, and the pity for Quigley is that Fermanagh have just never had enough other piercing attacking threats to draw the bees away from him.
Make no mistake though.
For sheer raw, natural footballing ability, Sean Quigley is as good as almost anything else out there.
