CYCLE COLLINS
Podge: Success comes & goes.. we never assumed we’d win again
PODGE COLLINS insists the Clare hurlers never assumed more success would follow their 2013 All-ireland breakthrough.
The accepted narrative goes that Davy Fitzgerald’s (inset) young guns had primed themselves for further championship glory – especially with the county’s winning run at under21 level set to put more talent on the conveyor belt.
But Collins, now 26, claims that was simply not the mentality within the panel.
He said: “From a young age I was always told, ‘This could be your last one’ – whether it was club or schools. I take every year on its merits and give it as best a go as I can and see how it goes.
“I never really thought after 2013, ‘This is going to happen for years to come’.
“We knew it wasn’t the case. We know the different players around different counties.
“It just doesn’t happen. “That Kilkenny team that dominated for years were just an exceptional bunch, and when you were looking at them, every year you had more and more admiration for them and the way they kept pushing themselves and pushing boundaries. They really are the benchmark for any sport or any team. People talk about the All-blacks – I talk about the Kilkenny hurlers of that decade.”
The reality is that
Clare haven’t won anything since and didn’t reach the All-ireland semi-final stage again until this year, when they lost out to Galway after a replay.
Asked if it was hard to block out the expectation brought about by the age profile of an All-ireland winning team, Collins replied: “It might seem that way because we haven’t won anything since. People from the outside might think that, but I definitely never thought that.
“I was happy with how things were going, I never felt like we deviated from training. We trained hard and worked as hard as we could. “When I look back on my career, I don’t want to be like, ‘I could have given it more’.
“You always want to say that you looked after yourself as best you could, you trained as hard as you could and you gave yourself the best opportunity to play as well as you could in your sport. And not to be thinking about it afterwards going, ‘Oh, I shouldn’t have gone drinking there for those three years,’ or gone travelling for a year or two or whatever it is.
“I really want to give myself every opportunity to do as well as I can, and I think most of the lads I’m involved with are very driven guys and they look after themselves.
“If you see the shape they’re in and the athleticism they have, they do look after themselves.
“It hasn’t really happened and that’s unfortunate, but we just give it a go every year and pray it might be our year.”