The Mike Quirke Podcast

For this episode, the final one of the season, we take a look at some of the questions that you have asked during the series about different episodes or specific parts of the various conversations.   (3.00) – Why developing people skills is so important (7.15) – Specific advice for coaching underage sport (12.15) – Another look at biobanding (29.50) – Skill acquisition                             ...

With nearly 130 caps for the Irish rugby team, a British and Irish Lion, Munster’s all-time leading points scorer - Ronan O’Gara is one of Ireland’s sporting icons. From Munster to France, to New Zealand and back now as coach of LaRochelle, O’Gara talks with great honestly and openness about his experiences and lessons learned from the many different professional coaching environments he’s been a...

Kieran Donaghy will be well known to listeners for his exploits as an All-Star player both on the football pitches and basketball courts of Ireland for the bones of nearly 20 years. In this episode he takes us through his fledgling coaching career having coached and managed Tralee IT in Sigerson cup football, as a performance coach with the Galway hurlers and currently as a forwards coach under Ki...

Paddy Tally is currently coaching the Kerry senior football team, having previously started his 15 years of inter-county football experience with Tyrone back in 2003. There have been plenty of stops along the road, including Sigerson success in St Mary’s Belfast, as well as stints in Down and Galway. As a lecturer in the PE department in St Mary’s for 25 years, he shares some of the gems he has pi...

Phil Kearney is a lecturer in Skill Acquisition, Coaching and Performance in the Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences in the University of Limerick. His research has examined human motor behaviour; that is, how humans control their movements and develop their skills across their lifespan. His recent research has concentrated on youth sport, in particular within the context of track...

Alan Keane is the Irish man carving out his own coaching path on foreign soil since leaving his home town of Tralee, and found himself coaching his way through UK basketball, from professional level in Reading, to working his way up to coaching England and Great Britain under 16, under 18 and under 20’s to European championships competing in the top A division and winning a silver medal in 2017. A...

Frank Dick has done most everything that can be done in the world of coaching. From being the British Athletics Federation’s director of coaching to becoming the high-performance director with the South African Olympic committee while helping to deliver several medals along the way. In 2016 Frank was invited to become a strategic consultant with England rugby’s leadership team ahead of the rugby W...

Fionn Fitzgerald will be well known to followers of GAA, having captained Kerry to a senior football All Ireland title in 2014. The Dr Crokes club man is a lecturer in MTU Kerry campus and is currently undertaking a PhD looking at the area of biobanding, relative age effect and maturation rates of players involved with GAA development academies. In this episode, Fionn shares his thoughts on the ‘g...

Episode 15 – A road less travelled with performance coach Tony Griffin   Long before he made a name as a Performance Coach with the All Ireland champion Kerry footballers this year and previously the Dublin hurlers, Tony Griffin carved out an impressive All-Star hurling career of his own with his native Clare. In this episode, Tony shares his considerable experience of hurling at the top level in...

This is episode number 14 and my final one for the fundraiser for Temple Street Childrens Hospital. Over the past few weeks, I've been asking people to submit any coaching questions they may have and in this 30 minutes or so I've tried to answer some of those queries. While this is the final episode, I'll be giving the fundraiser another two weeks before I wrap it up to allow people the time to co...

Patrick Harding is the Irish man working as performance coach to the likes of Formula one driver Alex Albon from team Red Bull, professional Irish boxer Michael Conlan as well as various others.   If you've watched the "Drive to survive" documentary on Netflix over the rolling lockdowns, you might have caught a glimpse of Patrick putting in work with Alex in one of the many engaging episodes.   In...

Ray Boyne started his involvement with Dublin GAA when Mickey Whelan brought him in with the minor county football team back in 2003. He has worked with the various senior football set-up's since then, as well as helping the county hurlers and camogie teams before joining the Tipperary hurling team and continuing his run of winning All Ireland titles as part of the back room team.   He does a grea...

Barry Solan is a Mayo man from Ballaghaderreen in the west of Ireland who has found his home as strength and conditioning coach with Arsenal FC's first team for the past 6 years.   He's previously worked in rugby and GAA over here, most recently with Mayo.   In this episode, Barry shares his vast experience from the various top level coaching environments he's been a part of and gives us a great b...

Jonny McMurtry is originally from Northern Ireland but living in Brisbane for the past 16 years, and has been involved for the best part of 10 years working in high performance age grade rugby programs across Australia.  He's also currently putting together research in conjunction with University of Queensland and Rugby Australia, looking at players' engagement and understanding what motivates, en...

Ann Downey is a Kilkenny camogie legend having won 12 All Ireland inter-county titles as well as 7 club All Ireland's as a player before adding to that collection in 2016 as manager to her own county.   Ann talks us through her journey from player to coach and manager, how her philosophies like complete honesty and 'happy person, happy player' guided her coaching journey, and why girls need more r...

Alan Ringland is a lecturer of sport psychology in the Munster Technological University and is an accredited practitioner who has worked in amateur and professional sport (everything from Sigerson GAA football success to Warrington rugby league football) for more than 20 years. He has spent the last 14 years working as team psychologist for Paralympics Ireland and helped them prepare for countless...

Joe O'Connor is a lecturer in health and leisure in MTU Tralee and has been the S & C coach for All Ireland winning hurling sides Clare in 2013 and more recently Limerick in 2018 as well as working with other inter-county GAA teams along the way. As well as his athletics background, Joe is currently working with golfers as well as elite Irish equestrian sport and people will probably be familiar w...

Nick Potter is the director of High Performance and Sports Science at Duke university men's basketball.  His role involves monitoring player health, performance, recovery, and wellness with key team personnel to ensure optimal athlete individualization and holistic development.  Nick works hand and glove with one of the most legendary coaches in all of basketball in coach K - Mike Krzyzewski and h...

Derek McGrath played hurling at all levels for Waterford for many years, before eventually taking over as manager of the senior county side in 2013 for 5 seasons.  A deep thinker about the game and coaching in general, he is a regular newspaper columnist with the Irish Examiner and Sunday Game analyst, and in this episode his views on coaching will give you plenty of food for thought. Also, I've s...

Dave Power is the PGA club pro in Tralee golf club, Co. Kerry. The Tralee course is regularly listed among the top 10 in Ireland and is widely regarded as one of the most scenic tracks you'll find anywhere in the world. In episode 4, Dave talks us though his transition from being a collegiate scholarship golfer in the states to finding his eventual home teaching the game to players of all ages and...

Bernard Jackman played rugby and won titles for numerous teams, most notably Connaught, Leinster, Sale and Ireland, while later coaching with the Dragons in Wales and Grenoble in France. In this third episode of the series Bernard takes us through his colorful journey from starting playing the game in an amateur era to being one of the first players in Ireland to receive a professional contract. H...

Jason Sherlock was an inter-county footballer with Dublin for 15 seasons, having played everything from tennis to soccer and basketball as a youngster. In this episode, Jason shares how that multi-sport involvement shaped his coaching philosophy and how he put it into practice first with a Dublin development squad and eventually working with Jim Gavin and the all-conquering 5 in a row Dublin senio...

This first episode is with somebody I know well... Rus Bradburd is a American basketball coach who has worked with some legendary NCAA coaches like Don Haskins and Lou Henson throughout his time as an assistant coach and recruiter in UTEP and New Mexico State.  Years later, he travelled to Ireland to coach the Tralee Tigers and learn to play the fiddle, while writing a book. Here, he shares with m...