By John Harrington

The Banner County is flying high so far in 2016 – their hurlers are Allianz Division 1 Champions and their footballers surprised everyone by beating Kildare in the Division 3 Final.

Both teams train on adjacent pitches at Clare GAA’s centre of excellence in Caherlohan so in recent weeks there has been a real buzz in the air.

Podge Collins has played a key role in recent weeks for both teams, and so far at least his return to a dual star status has worked well. According to Clare football selector David O’Brien, the give and take between both camps for his services is now seamless.

“He has his schedule, it’s more or less a week with us, a week with them or if they have a game coming up he’ll be with them for the week,” said O’Brien at the launch of the Munster Championships at the Rock of Cashel this week.

“We will have him now until the Limerick game and they’ll have him after that. It’s something that’s working away, there’s no real communication on it at all now because it is something that was set up at the start of the year and it seems to be suiting everyone right now.”

Serving two masters doesn’t seem to be adversely affecting Collins because he has been performing well for both teams in recent matches and played a key role in their respective League triumphs.

“It’s great for him,” said O’Brien. “I wouldn’t have known him very well before getting involved. He’s still like a child in the playground, he just wants to play. If you could arrange it that we train at six and they train at eight or vice versa, he’d do both! You are trying to hold him back more than anything. When he was injured it was killing him to just have to stand and watch what was happening. It’s a great achievement for him to pick up two National League titles in a couple of weeks. He got to do the football with (his father) Colm and (brother) Sean and there are also a lot of Cratloe lads involved so it’s like a big family for him at the minute and it’s working well.”

After the 2014 Championship, Clare hurling manager Davy Fitzgerald decided he could no longer accommodate dual players in his panel so Collins and his brother Sean decided to focus on football. A torn cruciate ligament subsequently ruled him out for the footballers too, and when he recovered Fitzgerald decided to bring him back into the fold and enable him to play both codes again this year.

“I think, from talking to Davy and talking to Colm and all, you had a player that really believed he could do both, really wants to try and do both and everyone just said, 'Look, we'll see if it works',” said O’Brien. “That was kind of it. Come up with a schedule to see if it can work and that's what's happening now. There's been no…like people had a thing there before the League final, 'He's being released' or 'He's being released to play hurling' or 'He's being released to play football'. Everybody is just on a schedule and all games and all eventualities were filled in and they're just happening. Podge knows where he is in a month's time, depending on what game is on. It's working for him.”

The recruitment of O’Brien to his backroom team by Clare football manager Colm Collins can have done the lines of communication between him and Davy Fitzgerald no harm. O’Brien is a friend of the Clare hurling manager and worked with him previously with both the LIT and Waterford hurling teams. He sees similarities between both Fitzgerald and Collins because they’d both do anything for their players.

“To be honest, trying to describe Davy...if you needed something tomorrow and you had to pick your phone up and ask somebody that's definitely going to help you, he'd be one of the first ones that I would ring anyway,” said O’Brien. “What comes across on the television, a lot of it is to take the pressure off the lads he wants to perform.

“He has no problem doing that, other people wouldn't do it. If you need something and he can help you, he'll help you. That seems to be the case with the buzz in the hurling set up at the minute, that the players know that they don't want for anything, we don't want for anything but that's probably down to the two managers that are involved. They will do anything in their power for their players.

Fitzgerald is famously animated on the sideline for Clare, but O’Brien believes much of it is affected and designed to take the heat off his players.

“I think people look at Davy and say, 'Oh he's lost the plot'. I don't think Davy ever loses the plot. It's just from talking to him, you'll get a wink. He could be shouting at someone for a minute and then you'll just get a wink and you're just kind of going, 'I've lost the plot and I wouldn't be able to wink at someone!' It's totally... it is what it is, he just loves it and he's not going to shirk that at any stage. If he thinks something will give his team an edge or the players more protection or whatever it is, he'll say it or do it. The consequences will take care of themselves after that then.”

The Clare footballers play Limerick in the Munster SFC quarter-final on May 29, a week before the county’s hurlers are out against Waterford in the Munster SHC semi-final. The Banner County will be hot favourites because they enjoyed a much more successful League campaign than a Limerick side that was relegated to Division 4. But O’Brien believes that will count for little when the ball is thrown in between the teams.

“We know that what we did in the League isn't going to count for anything if we go down to the Gaelic Grounds and say, 'We're in Division Two now, they're in Division Four'. We'll be coming out of the Gaelic Grounds, we'll be in Division Two but we'll be out of the Munster Championship and that's exactly what it is. There's very little ever between Clare and Limerick. I think a couple of years ago they were in Division Two and Clare were in Division Four and Clare would have believed, 'If we do it right, we'll beat them'. Limerick are going to be thinking the exact same thing.

“They will be ready for it and we have to make sure that we are, mentally and physically and everything because Limerick will be an awful lot better than they were in the League and if we're not ready we're gone and that's more or less it.”