Collins won the 2013 All-Ireland hurling title with Clare but the team have not reached a final since DAN SHERIDAN/INPHOWhen Podge Collins and Clare came bursting through in 2013 to win the hurling championship with a team of greenhorns, a second title to back it up seemed a given. The average age of the match-day squad that took down Cork in an All-Ireland final replay was just over 23. Nine were 21 or younger and Shane O’Donnell, who blitzed Cork in the replay with 3-3, was 19. Six years later, and with five more championship campaigns completed, Clare still haven’t backed up that win and, as Collins acknowledged, it’s essentially “a completely different team now”, trying to make its own history. His sense of the current Clare group is that they’re on the up and positioned nicely to attack though noted how competitive the…

Source: The Times May 29, 2019 23:10 UTC