Quirke: Galway the perfect fit for Fitzmaurice

New Galway senior football manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice ©INPHO/James Crombie

Mike Quirke has described Éamonn Fitzmaurice as a ‘brilliant fit’ for Galway.

Fitzmaurice has been appointed as Galway football manager on a three-year term and his former Kerry team-mate sees it as the perfect match.

"I think from a football perspective, it’s a brilliant fit," the former Kerry selector and Laois manager told the RTÉ GAA Podcast.

"Éamonn has obviously been out of the game at senior inter-county level for a number of years, he obviously was so embedded in the FRC and looking at the rules and through his media stuff then as well had a really close connection with the game.

"I think Galway are a team that have been everyone’s second favourite team or close enough to it for a number of years, so I think from a football point of view it makes loads of sense.

"There’s a lot of symbiosis between Kerry and Galway, there’s a lot of traditional ideals of how the game is played in both of those counties and I think it would have taken something like that for Éamonn to get back involved.

"I don’t think it was going to be a county that didn’t have a lot of similarities to the way Kerry like to play football and the way it is held within the county, it’s such a big deal in Galway.”

Quirke added: "Obviously hurling is huge, but it’s a big, big footballing county with a lot of proud history in the way the game is played. I think that was a huge factor in it as well, it just suits the way Éamonn himself who has been so embedded in Kerry football for a huge number of years through minor, Under 20 and senior and then into management, I think it would have taken something like that to really pique that interest to get back into the game."