1 week Ago
Nathan Collins will once again captain the Republic of Ireland Five weeks ago, the clock ticked past the 16th minute in Helsinki as Nathan Collins received the ball at the back. His horror error allowed Joel Pohjanpalo to pounce on a stray back pass and fire Finland into an early lead as the Irish captain looked up to the sky in disbelief before putting his hand up in apology. It’s said that one learns more from failure than success.
“S**t happens” was Heimir Hallgrimsson’s verdict on Collins’ mistake after his side recovered and went on to win 2-1. But at 1-0 down after the nightmare moment, the Brentford centre-half had two options as Caoimhín Kelleher picked the ball out of the net — fight or flight. He chose to fight.
“You just have to bounce back really. I think I’ve made enough mistakes in my career already that I know I have to bounce back. I thought I did alright,” said Collins, who will captain the Republic of Ireland again against Finland at Lansdowne Road on Thursday evening (7.
45pm). “I think mentally, probably a year or two earlier, I would have been a bit lost after that. It would have affected me badly.
I’m proud of how I reacted, how I got on with it and moved on. “I just went back to basics, won my little duels, got my little passes, did those things right and got myself back in the game. Of course, it’s annoying and it affects you.
With the group we have here, I know they’ll fight for me.” As he takes the captain’s armband for the fourth successive game in Séamus Coleman’s absence, the defender insists he’ll look to lead the team regardless of whether he’s skipper or not. “The way I’ve always seen myself, the way I play is I’ll always try to be a leader,” said the 23-year-old.
“Nathan Jones made me captain at Stoke when I was 18 for the way I was. I don’t think I’ve changed much mentally from then, maybe physically a little bit. I don’t think my style will ever change because there’s an armband on my arm.
I’ll always be the same player. I’ll always try to be a leader, be positive, encourage and talk to people. Why would I change?” Last month, before the Republic secured a first away win in the Nations League against Finland, Collins admitted that the players held a tough chat between themselves in the wake of September’s home defeat to Greece, adding: “We’ve been speaking about how much we want to win, get that good feeling back into the country.
As a group, we are all sick of it (losing run).” A month on, he felt that victory in Helsinki was a turning point. “I guess the Finland game brought a lot for us.
We probably didn’t start the greatest in Greece (2-0 defeat last month), but you could see in the second-half there was belief we could go and win the game. “I think we’ve been struggling for belief that we could win games lately, especially to come from behind away to Finland. That brought something different into the team.
It’s a lot to build on, it’s a lot of belief in there. It’s a different feeling that we haven’t had in a while.” With a glamour clash against England at Wembley to follow on Sunday, Collins’ full focus is on Finland, as not losing this evening would see them avoid automatic relegation to League C.
“I haven’t thought of it yet, my only motivation is Finland. That’s the biggest game in the world. When that’s over, then England will be the biggest game in the world.
“It’s another building block. The first camp wasn’t our best. In the last camp, you saw what we can do and the improvements we have made.
This camp, I think we have gone up another level and everyone has bought into it even more.” Collins has partnered Celtic’s Liam Scales in the heart of the Irish defence for each of the last two games, as he cast his mind back to watching his team-mate come up through the ranks almost a decade before. “I‘ve watched Scalesy play since I was 14.
He played centre-back at UCD with my brother (Josh),” smiled Collins. “He deserves this and he’s taking it by the scruff of the neck.”.
