
Kevin Quinn praises Wicklow manager Oisín McConville for his guidance
Wicklow forward Kevin Quinn has praised manager Oisín McConville for his guidance as he continues to learn from the former Armagh footballer.
Since McConville took over as manager in 2022, Quinn has become one of Wicklow's most important players, playing a key role in the full-forward line.
Advertisement
In McConville — who was instrumental in Armagh's All-Ireland win in 2002 — he has one of the best possible mentors.
Speaking to
BreakingNews.ie
, Quinn praised McConville for the confidence he instils in the team.
'Oisín has a huge belief in the talent we have. I think we probably need to believe in our capabilities a bit more — believe we can go into games against anyone and come out with a result.
'It's something we've been working on and something we can keep developing, I suppose. I genuinely think that on our day, if we play the way we want to play, we can turn over anyone.
Advertisement
'It's great having someone like McConville pulling you for chats and giving you a bit of insight as a forward. Oisín is obviously someone who's been there and done that, so any bit of advice you get from him is huge.'
There have been positive signs from Wicklow so far this season.
After narrowly missing out on promotion from Division Four, they gave Dublin a strong challenge in the Leinster quarter-final.
In their Tailteann Cup group, they will face Offaly, Laois, and Waterford. Their season ended at the quarter-final stage last year, when they were beaten by eventual winners Down — but Quinn is confident Wicklow can go further this time.
'You can't really accept defeat, but we did show in patches against Dublin what we can do, even against opposition like that.
'We definitely need more consistency in our performances. There are positives to take, so hopefully we can carry those into the Tailteann.
'I think the Tailteann this year is probably the most competitive since it started, so we're looking to hit the ground running in our first match against Offaly.'

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Will Franco Smith stay on after Glasgow's Dublin drubbing?
In a season Franco Smith says has "had more positive days than negatives ones", it was a shame Glasgow Warriors' campaign ended on a big downer in the most familiar setting for such disappointments - the Aviva home of Irish rugby has been a graveyard for Scottish sides. None - not Glasgow or Edinburgh, not Scotland – has ever won in the Aviva, and Warriors never looked remotely capable of ending that desperate run as Leinster ripped the URC title from their frustration is Glasgow did so little in the semi-final to stop them. Aside from George Horne's early try and a quickfire double from Jamie Dobie and Sione Tuipulotu when the match had long ended as a contest, Warriors were dominated in every facet of the the battles – possession, territorial, tactical, aerial, discipline, contact – were bossed by the men in blue. "Going in half-time 25-5 down meant we would have to be extraordinary in the second part of the game. It's a little bit of an uphill battle then," Smith told BBC Scotland after the match."They didn't allow us to play, I thought their defence was excellent. (Leinster senior coach) Jacques Nienaber is doing a great job. He's a twice World Cup winner with that type of defence that they've used."They were on top of it today, they've limited teams the whole season from scoring points against them, and no difference today."I think once they smelled blood in the second part of the game, it was always going to be hard to cancel that deficit."It was like groundhog day in Dublin. Leinster walloped Glasgow 52-0 in the Champions Cup quarter-final back in April and while the deficit on the scoreboard may not have been as wide on this occasion, everything else pointed to two sides operating on different an injury-plagued campaign, reaching the last four has been a credible defence of their URC crown. The only regret is Glasgow did not have one last fight in made a case before the game that Leinster may choke under the pressure while still struggling to come to terms with the Champions Cup semi-final defeat by Northampton that prompted such soul-searching. Glasgow never put themselves in a position to test Leinster's was emotional post-match, no doubt stung by the nature of the loss and drained after another long and demanding season away from his has been much speculation as to whether the South African wants to fulfil the final year of his contract at Scotstoun. He left more than a few breadcrumbs back in February when he left the door open to an approach from Wales to replace Warren Gatland. That vacancy has yet to be permanently were campaigning for Smith to step up and replace Gregor Townsend as Scotland coach after another underwhelming Six Nations. Townsend names his squad for the summer Tests on Tuesday – he's going publicly expressed his frustration with the departure of key players this summer such as Henco Venter, Tom Jordan and Sebastian Cancelliere amid the SRU's drive to promote young Scottish talent, it would be understandable if Smith now felt he had taken Glasgow as far as he asked directly by BBC Scotland whether he would still be at Scotstoun next season, the head coach offered no guarantees."I'm looking forward to reflect a little bit," he said."I think it's 44 weeks we've been at it, there's only 52 weeks in the year, so it's a full year's work."If you defend the title you have to be on top of your game in all of it, so it will be important for me now to go and reflect a little bit, and take a bit of downtime, and hopefully see what's going to come next."


Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
We weren't good enough, admits Warriors coach Franco after reigning champions are blown away by Leinster
Leinster 37 Glasgow 19 GLASGOW WARRIORS boss Franco Smith admitted his team were nowhere near good enough after they were blown away by Leinster in the URC semi-finals. Leinster ran in six tries in a dominant performance to bring Glasgow's reign as champions to a brutal end in Dublin. The Irish side scored 30 unanswered points at one stage to race clear as the Warriors sank without a trace at the Aviva. In particular, Smith was left to rue a slow start which had seen his team chasing the game and, ultimately, making too many unforced errors. 'Ultimately, we weren't good enough on the day, especially in the first half,' admitted the Glasgow head coach. 'I felt we should have started the game much better. 'It was a huge performance from Leinster. They started so quickly and we were chasing things from there, which is so hard. That just led to more errors from our side. 'They did a job on us in the first 20 or 25 minutes, where we had to make about 100 tackles. Leinster are a quality outfit, but we could have been better. 'They kept the error and penalty count down while we didn't. They put us on the back foot and it was an uphill battle from there.' Smith had started the match with two fly-halves on the pitch, as Adam Hastings started at 10 and Tom Jordan at 12 in an effort to match Leinster's kicking game. But it didn't work. Glasgow lost the aerial battle and Hastings was taken off at half-time, as Leinster dominated. Insisting that it was not the wrong approach, Smith said: 'I don't think the strategy was wrong. I think that's the right way to play against Leinster. We just didn't compete well enough in the aerial battle.' Despite the heavy defeat, Smith insisted he was proud of the efforts from his players in a title defence which fell short at the semi-final stage. 'I am really proud of our boys for our title defence this season,' he added. 'We must see it in context. We've had a lot of guys injured and not available for selection. You have to look at the big picture. 'We had to be extraordinarily good and they would have had to be average at least and that didn't happen.' Meanwhile, Leinster forward Ryan Baird, who was named man of the match, said: 'We want to win this tournament. Simple as that. We needed to turn up, no excuses and we did that. 'Glasgow are a great team full of Lions players and we never took them for granted. We were physical and energetic which is just as pleasing as the scores we got.'


BreakingNews.ie
3 hours ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Leinster overcome champions Glasgow to reach URC final
Leinster will host next week's United Rugby Championship final at Croke Park after dishing out a 37-19 beating to last year's winners Glasgow Warriors. The province, who had endured three straight URC semi-final defeats, regained their mojo to set up a Dublin decider against the Bulls or Sharks. Advertisement Dan Sheehan started and finished the first half's try-scoring to give Leinster a 25-5 lead as Jamie Osborne and Tom Clarkson also crossed at a rain-hit Aviva Stadium. Osborne and Ciaran Frawley made it six tries to one before closing scores from Jamie Dobie and Sione Tuipulotu added to George Horne's fourth-minute effort. The hosts hit the ground running with Jamison Gibson-Park pulling the trigger for Sheehan to raid over in the second minute. Glasgow swiftly cut the gap to 7-5 when Kyle Rowe's inviting kick infield was dotted down by Horne. Advertisement Crossing from James Lowe denied Leinster a second try before Sam Prendergast slotted over a 21st-minute penalty. A Gibson-Park forward pass ruled out an Osborne score but the young centre duly scored out wide from a slick Lowe offload. Leinster turned a scrum penalty into five more points when Clarkson rumbled over and Sheehan's maul try came on the stroke of half-time. Despite Tom Jordan switching to fly-half for the Warriors, Leinster, aided by Ryan Baird's player-of-the-match performance, remained in full control. Following a penalty miss from Prendergast, who had a disappointing day with the boot, Gibson-Park clinically played in Osborne in the 53rd minute to make it 32-5. Replacement Frawley followed him over the line just four minutes later, with Lowe's initial aerial take igniting a sweeping move. Sprung from the Scots' bench, Dobie raced over in the 71st minute and Tuipulotu displayed his dancing feet with a superb solo try from the edge of Leinster's 22.