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Kilmoyley’s, Daniel Collins, as captain leads out Kerry against Limerick in the Gaelic Grounds in the Munster Senior Hurling League earlier this year.
AHEAD of Kerry’s return to the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship this Sunday, Captain Daniel Collins has spoken about the rivalry between Kerry clubs and how winning is a habit for this generation of Kerry players.
“I suppose every year I’ve been with Kerry I’ve nearly won something,” Daniel Collins told GAA.ie in an interview at the launch of the Leinster Senior Hurling Championship, which Kerry play in this weekend.
“Between the Christy Ring last year and the National League two years in a row. And the year before we were in a Christy Ring Final. I suppose we’ve been breeding success. I know it was a Division below where we are now, but it really gets your confidence up when you keep constantly winning at that level and you start to believe that you’re good enough to take the next step,” he said.
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Championship action returns to Austin Stack Park for the first time since Kerry played a football qualifier against Sligo in 2009. Kerry will take on Carlow at 1pm in what will be Ciarán Carey and his side’s first of three matches in the preliminary Leinster Championship.
Collins also spoke about the rivalry between the eight senior clubs in Kerry which in the past has been divisive in the county side, but not this crop of hurlers he said.
“I think maybe we discussed that with our psychologist in the last couple of years especially,” admits the Kilmoyley man.
“It used to get in the way maybe and affect Kerry hurling because fellas used hate this fella or that because he played for the club next door and they wouldn’t pass the ball to him and all of this sort of carry-on. That’s completely shut down now. The club stuff doesn’t matter anymore when you’re in with Kerry. Everyone gets on with everyone. And when we go back to the clubs we take each other’s heads off, but that’s exactly how you want it and that’s how fellas like it.
“Those eight clubs, they’re all only four or five miles apart, and we’d end up playing each other five or six times a year. It’s just crazy, even if the rivalry isn’t as bad as it once was. Before fellas used to hold grudges off the field, but now that’s gone. The rivalry is there on the pitch and it’s hard and it’s tough, but as soon as we go off the pitch every fella more or less does get on,” he said.
Read the rest of the full interview HERE
