Sometimes you sit down with a player and you think to yourself “How the hell am I going to make this interesting?” That’s especially pertinent when building up to an All Ireland final when players are at their most guarded. So what do you do? Ask a series of questions regarding their or the opposition teams tactics? Quiz them on why they think they’ll win? Ask who the opposition they don’t rate and why?
Maybe some day when if the GAA and UFC merge as they seem to have in some football games this summer…okay that’s just an exaggeration… players will indulge in such topics but until then pre All Ireland press nights will involve our best and brightest being polite and talking around the game rather than about it. As we might say if we were at a county board meeting “on a point of clarification”, if I sound like I’m being critical I don’t mean to be as it would be unfair to expect players or managers to give anything away.
If you need reminding of why, just think back to 1990 and Babs Keating’s “Donkeys don’t win derbies” jibe at Cork before the Munster final. Needless to say the Rebels proved their thoroughbred nature that year annexing both provincial and All Ireland titles.
Kilkenny always walk around with a loaded gun, so in truth they don’t need ammunition from opposition teams. When we sit down with Galway captain David Collins that’s not what we’re looking for and even if we were, which we weren’t. he’d be too smart to give it away. At any stage of the year a chat with the Liam Mellows defender would be interesting. He was made captain by Ger Loughnane at the age of 23 he’s now ten years a senior inter county player along the way recovering from a dip in form caused by a bad ankle injury at the end of 2007.
Loughnane lost his job by two votes at the end of 2008 after two years of promising much but delivering little in the Championship and while their crucial qualifier loss to Cork wasn’t strictly down to Collins absence through said injury it certainly didn’t help. The Connacht men seemed helpless, as the Rebels, down to 14 men after Donal Og Cusack was sent off, ran through the Maroons defence with abandon chipping away at a large lead on the day Joe Canning announced himself as a senior inter county star with a personal total of 2-12.
“Thanks” in a playful tone is how responds when we put in to him that including replays this will be his fourth All Ireland final, none of which he’s won before we move on swiftly to his and Galway’s year. “It’s been a rollercoaster year where we’ve had massive downs leading to great ups, I think the difference this year is the intensity and the aggression of the whole panel. The depth in the squad that we have at the moment is fantastic. It’s buzzing at training and lads are mad for it”. Even the defeat of their under 21’s in the All Ireland semi final in which Cathal Mannion, Conor Whelan and Jason Flynn were involved is turned into a positive. “The loss of the under 21’s will spur it on a bit more because they’re not going to lose again I think we’ve a fantastic chance and we’re ready for it”.
When Collins speaks, he speaks on behalf of the panel and not just himself but lets not confuse that with a lack of personal ambition. He has a burning desire to start or play the full seventy minutes but even on days he’s not starting, he admits he prepares like he is. That’s not just for himself that’s for the good of the dressing room. Referring to his early introduction the All Ireland semi final against Tipperary; “I prepared that morning like I was starting. I knew at the drop of a hat I could be starting if there was injury and that’s the way I have to prepare, otherwise I’d be zoned out. Within a minute and half I was on that field because Aidan Harte was blood subbed. If I wasn’t mentally prepared for that, I would have been out of the zone”.
He warns of the danger of a lack of focus or poor attitude for non starters in the dressing room. “If you go into the dressing room with lack of focus other people feeds of it and that brings a negative and you can’t let that happen.”
Would he last 70 minutes? I’ll let him answer. “I’d last 90 minutes. I’m one of the fitter guys on that team and I’m always willing to go the extra mile”. Anyone who’s followed hurling in recent years knows that’s not idle talk and he’s actually talking himself down. If required he’d play from dawn til dusk and beyond.
We could talk with Collins for hours in fact this is our second interview with him this year but we’d welcome a third, but will that interview be with an All Ireland winning Captain? It won’t be for the want of trying and he’s encouraging the fans to play their part, insisting he’s not confusing expectation with unfair pressure. “I think we have what it takes and they believe we have what it takes. I would look at that as a positive I wouldn’t look it at it as them putting pressure on us, screw that turn the negative into a positive”.
“Just shout and roar and be their for the team and support” is his message to the fans and one suspects if they do win The Saw Doctors will not only have to reform but they’ll have to pen a song to commemorate!
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