Podge Collins makes the Mayo footballers feel a bit better about themselves

To win just once is the famous line.

There's even a song made about Mayo's desperate desire to win an All-Ireland final. The nearly men of Gaelic football have been knocking on the door for the last ten years and though they famously haven't beaten it down yet, Mayo for Sam and all that comes with it has become this country's most enchanting sporting pursuit along the way. They're admired as much as All-Ireland winners, they're probably loved even more without Sam than if they had won Sam and they're also very well respected. If anything, there's a bit of a contrast between the Mayo footballers and the Clare hurlers over the last few years. Where Mayo are always on the cusp never to win, the Banner boys won at the very beginning of their journey but they didn't even been compete, exiting the hurling championship before the semi-finals in the four years that followed. Podge Collins is a competitor. Being down and not even challenging between 2014 and 2017 killed him. You better believe it did and that's why he looks at Mayo, a team who always hit their potential and thinks a journey like that would have been more enjoyable.

“2013 was something we’ll always have but let’s say for example Mayo, who have been a championship team for the last eight, nine, ten years, you’d much rather nearly be like that for your own morale, for the dressing room," he said.

It's harsh to have an All-Ireland win as the only barometer for success. If that's the case, then almost every team is a failure as all of their triumphs leading up to then are forgotten. And that's why Collins now, is desperate to kick on from Clare's progress in 2018 to bring more consistency to the table for the next few years.

"Since 2013, we weren’t competing at where we thought we should be and this year we probably were - so the aim now is to keep that consistency going, if we do, we’ll get opportunities and then it’s just down to us to take them…"

He doesn't look at this year's semi-final loss to Galway as a failure either. He has an interesting take on tight games like that, his view being that the team who led for the most of the game are the team who deserves to win.

"I don’t know. People often say to me, ‘ye could have beaten Galway,’ but at the end of the day, we never lead against Galway, after two days with that amount of hurling.

"The only time I would say, that first half of extra-time the first day, we took control but we hit a lot of wides. Outside of that Galway lead all the time, so I don’t know why, even though they were very close games, I’d be of the opinion that it’s usually the team who leads the whole way that deserves to win."

That opinion comes from Clare's All-Ireland win in 2013.

"2013, for example, Pat Horgan hit the point to beat us if Brian Gavin had blown the whistle, even though we had led the whole game...that would have been really disappointing for us so, based on that, I think Galway deserved to beat us."

So there's no doubting that Collins and Clare are looking to next year already.

“Definitely. One thing I know is that once the final whistle blows in the All-Ireland final and one team is celebrating, every other team is like ‘right, next year.’ That’s the way it’s gone. Every inter-county team will have interacted in some way by this stage...

"We go to Boston for this Fenway Classic and the team will be together for that, the Munster League starts in December, then the League goes and before you know it you’ve championship. Limerick winning the All-Ireland is forgotten about at that stage, that’s the nature of it."

Podge Collins of Clare was at Dublin Airport this morning where Aer Lingus, in partnership with the GAA and GPA, unveiled the one-of-a-kind customised playing kit for the Fenway Hurling Classic which takes place at Fenway Park in Boston on November 18th. Aer Lingus will once again be the Official Airline of the Event and will be responsible for flying the four teams to Boston.