Collins wants Clare to build on special victory
AS Clare’s closely-knit footballing fraternity savoured their moment of history in Salthill, Colm Collins, the softly-spoken mastermind behind the GAA story of this season, took a moment to catch his breath.
The Cratloe man was already able to look to the future and spoke of how the county must build on one of their greatest ever football achievements. ‘It is very important that this isn’t a stand-alone thing for Clare football,’ Collins says.
‘The structures have to be right underneath, the great work being done at development squad level must continue so that every young fella that wants to play football for Clare is given coaching, coaching and more coaching. It is important that we underpin this special day with work at the bottom.’
It’s no wonder that Collins referenced coaching immediately after his finest result. This outstanding Clare side looked, above all, a wellcoached side as they brushed Roscommon aside. And even after Enda Smith stooped for a goal during the second-half, Collins had full faith in his side.
‘What I was very annoyed about was the manner in which they got the goal,’ Collins explained. ‘We had the ball, let the ball over the line and we won’t be happy with that. That will be a video nasty which will be seen a few times this week.’
Roscommon’s year, which had promised so much, has crashed and burned in recent weeks and Kevin McStay had no answer for why his team were so flat.
‘We were not up for it,’ McStay stated bluntly. ‘The six day turnaround is obvious, you know the stats. It is a very tough one to manage but I thought we would be the match of Clare. If you had to play Dublin or Kerry in six days, you’d be up against it but we were playing Clare coming from Division 3 and we are Division 1.’