MUCH ADO ABOUT NATHAN
Football world winced at Ireland defender’s horror tackle on Grealish but he says ‘it was not malicious’
BY his own admission, Nathan Collins has had quite the week and he could do without it becoming even more hair-raising tonight.
After his kung fu fighting episode with Jack Grealish and a late, gut-wrenching defeat to Scotland, the prospect of Nations League relegation cannot be ruled out. Ireland are, of course, strong favourites to avoid that scenario but nothing is a given with a team still striving for consistency and a winning habit.
And not against opponents who blindsided Stephen Kenny’s men in Yerevan three months ago, even if they did lose their next four, conceding 14 goals and scoring just one in the process.
But, first things first. What about ‘that’ Grealish challenge and the furore it sparked in the UK before getting the full and forensic Match of the Day probe after a straight red card? The reaction here in Ireland was, naturally enough, a touch more tongue-in-cheek considering England star Grealish’s flirtation with the Boys in Green as a youngster. A mocked-up Irish stamp commemorating the flying Collins challenge even did the rounds (left).
And when the Ireland players arrived at their base the following day, the FAI posted social media footage of James Mcclean ribbing Collins for his delay leaving the Molineaux pitch. Ahead of tonight’s clash with Armenia, Wolves recruit Collins said: “It’s been eventful to say the least. It was a mistimed tackle. There was nothing malicious in it. That was it.
“After the game, I was outside the dressing room talking to someone and I saw him [Grealish].
“I spoke to him and said, ‘Listen, in the tackle I didn’t mean to go for you, I went for the ball and meant nothing by it’.
“It happens, mistimed tackles, red cards. Got to get on with life.
“Seamie [Coleman] (right) was a good help, Macker [Mcclean] was a good help. I knew I had a
massive game coming up on Saturday, so I didn’t have time to dwell on it.”
And centre-back Collins – who made his debut against Qatar last October – has made quite the impact on that national stage.
But he signaled his arrival in style during the summer with strong performances in all four of the June games, scoring an iconic Irish goal in the draw with Ukraine in Poland.
But while that solo goal had Ireland looking up going into the summer break, they are suddenly looking over their shoulder after defeat to Scotland.
Armenia, who beat Ireland 1-0 in Yerevan in June, will leapfrog Kenny’s men and relegate them to League C if they pull off a shock win tonight.
“Looking at this campaign, there are two ways of looking at it,” said Collins when asked to assess a group that Kenny wanted to win.
“You can look at results and think we could have done a lot better but then you can look at performances and say, maybe one game, we haven’t been at it.
“But in most games we’ve been involved and we’ve nearly been the better team – we’ve had chances and we’ve defended well.
“It’s whatever way you want to look at it but, from my perspective, as a team, you can see every game that we’re getting better.”
But going into the Euro qualifying draw on October 9 and the start of that campaign in March, Ireland need to find a winning habit.
And especially so against teams of similar ability - a fact not lost on Collins who became Irish football’s most expensive player with his €24million move to Wolves from Burnley.
Collins continued: “I think so, but that’s football isn’t it, you want to win every game. You have to win every game.
“I don’t think there’s a game where you don’t want to go and win it but there’s not a game we go into thinking we can’t win, no matter who the opponent is.
“Every game we go into I’d back our squad against whoever and I think we can win every game.”