The ties that bind: cousins Wall and Collins on family, rivalries and working together at last
Mary Immaculate College Limerick coach Pádraic Collins after the Electric Ireland Higher Education GAA Fitzgibbon Cup Round 2 match between Mary Immaculate College Limerick and UCC at MICL Grounds in Limerick. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
They were still at the kitchen table the other night well past midnight, spitballing, chatting, laughing.
They had already been out all day together. Taking in another Fitzgibbon Cup game in Limerick, then taking their own Mary Immaculate College panel for a session in the fabulous new complex in Clarecastle.
Yet after they drove back to Podge’s house in Cratloe and Jamie Wall dropped his bag in the spare room, the pair of them continued as they’d left off. Like selectors. Like cousins. Like when they were kids, “living in each other’s pockets”.
“We were there talking about different matchups for our upcoming game, games we could play [in training], games we played in ourselves,” says Wall.
“Ellen [Collins’ wife] must have been sitting there drinking her tea thinking, ‘Jesus, what have I signed up for here?’ But for us it was just natural.
“It’s often said that one of the lovely things about the Fitzgibbon is that a lot of guys from different counties get to play together. The beauty of it now is it gives the two of us a chance to team up together.” Finally.
Or should we say, again.
As kids they were always paired together whenever the Cremin sisters from Cullen (just outside Millstreet), Catherine and Sheila, would meet up and their weans would transform the back garden into Croker, Wembley, Waterloo.
“Even though we lived hours away, I’d have seen the three lads [Seán, Podge and David] more than our other cousins,” recalls Wall. “Catherine and Sheila would have been very close, still are.
“The teams were always Seán and David as the oldest and youngest against me and Podge as the two kids in the middle. There was no time limit on the games. They’d go on until someone went in crying.” Anytime they’d share an actual pitch together though they were always opponents, never teammates.
When they were both U14, Clare and Cork played a challenge game in Charleville ahead of the Tony Forristal tournament. Hard as it now is to believe but back then Podge was a corner back.
“He should have stayed there!” quips his cousin. He’d know. Not only would he become a fine corner back himself, playing a minor football All-Ireland final there, but that night in Charleville he was the opposing corner forward.
“We have two different recollections of that night,” smiles Collins.
“Podge claims he held me scoreless but I don’t remember it like that!” counters Wall. “I scored at least two points but he maintains he had been moved off me by the time I scored!”
“I think the other corner forward was doing more damage so that’s why I was moved off Jamie!”
At least that’s his story and he’s sticking with it. Wall, with his legal training, can cross-examine and reject it all he likes. Where’s his evidence to the contrary?
In 2010 they nearly rubbed shoulders again. Both were on their respective minor football panels and Clare and Cork were drawn against each other in the first round.
Collins was excellent that night in Cusack Park at wing forward, while inside a certain Tony Kelly from Clondegad wasn’t too shabby either. Wall, meanwhile, was in the Cork dugout, privately raging “like an anti-Christ” that he didn’t get a crack to mark either of them, but relieved that Cork somehow won by three points and he’d get another chance to break onto the team.
By the time of the Munster final he had while Podge and Kelly also got another chance and took it; the week after Wall and Cork beat Kerry in the football, Clare won Munster in the hurling. When their grandparents Kate-Mary and Phillip celebrated a landmark wedding anniversary that July, not only did the whole clan convene in Killarney but so did both Munster minor championship cups, providing photographs and memories they’ll have forever.
Both sides would progress to their respective All-Ireland finals which meant Jamie couldn’t get to see Podge play in his; Cork were training for their final against Tyrone at the same time Clare were playing Kilkenny.
“I had recorded the game and wanted to watch it without knowing the score only some ape told me the result. I still sat down and watched it while the senior game was going on live and when I saw Podge score a point into the Canal End and go nuts, my heart broke: how the hell did they lose it from here?”
Wall would have his own All-Ireland heartbreak a fortnight later, his side also losing by a single score, prompting the pair of them to meet up more than once that autumn. “Misery loves company,” says Wall.
Three years later they’d share a golden moment when Podge won a senior hurling All-Ireland title. That Clare’s triumph was at the expense of Cork, a county Wall was representing at U21 level in both codes at the time, couldn’t subdue Wall’s instinctive, overriding emotions. Genealogy trumped geography.
“All things being equal, of course I’d have been cheering for Cork. But it’s not equal when one of your oldest and closest friends is playing against them. It wasn’t like I was wearing a Clare jersey, I’ll put it that way, but I think for me to support a red jersey over my cousin would have been the more unnatural thing.”
The following week he caught up with his cousin for a few drinks and late nights in Ennis, knowing the same gesture would be reciprocated if ever a Cork team with Wall brought Sam Maguire or Liam MacCarthy back to the South Mall, regardless if they had beaten Clare en route.
Within a year though a cruel twist of fate ruled out that prospect. Only months after he’d scored 12 of Mary I’s 16 points against his cousin and UL in a Fitzgibbon Cup match, Wall suddenly found himself unable to move. An abscess on his spine had left him paralysed from the midriff down.
Podge that year was playing for both the Clare senior footballers and hurlers and en route to winning both county championships with Cratloe, yet whenever he found the time he’d spend it down in Cork visiting his cousin.
“It was a very tough time for the family,” he says. “I suppose all you were trying to do was support him and help him keep a positive perspective on things. And in fairness there is no one who has done that better than Jamie has. There was plenty of cause for him to go in a different direction but what he has gone on to do is inspirational to so many people. He might not be comfortable hearing that now but it’s the truth. I have such massive admiration for the man.”
These days Wall works on that same South Mall where Cork traditionally parade any All Ireland silverware; five years ago he went back to college to study law and is now a trainee solicitor with RDJ. He hasn’t neglected his coaching though; 10 years to the day after scoring those dozen points for Mary I against Podge, he leads them today into another Fitzgibbon Cup quarter-final, seeking a third title to go with the ones he coached them to in 2016 and 2017.
In that bid he enlisted the services of his cousin. The winter before last Podge had mentioned to him how he had an interest in someday coaching like his dad Colm before him. Wall pounced: he could offer him an apprenticeship straightaway.
“Sure he has won it all. And being exposed to so many good setups. Donal Moloney and Gerry O’Connor. Davy Fitz and Paul Kinnerk. Colm obviously with the footballers. It would have been stupid not to tap into a resource like that when it’s just down the road from where we are. And the players have really responded to him and hugely respect him.”
For Collins it has been an education. Not just how willing Wall is to take on board any ideas about matchups or games he might suggest in a voice note but particularly how he manages and supports his players.
“I think it would be very hard for an inter-county manager or even a top club manager to come back into coaching Fitzgibbon if they haven’t played Fitzgibbon or coached Fitzgibbon in sometime. Because it’s such a unique set of circumstances. Jamie brings an experience and understanding of Fitzgibbon hurling that hardly anyone else can. He knows when players can do certain things and when they can’t which is why they find him so approachable.”
For Wall the secret is to remember what the essence of the GAA is about and what third-level GAA should be all about.
“I think when it comes to talking about colleges GAA we can get lost in talking about how much it means to lads to win a Fitzgibbon or Sigerson or even how good the standard of play is.
“For me we’ve to remember that for most of these young people it’s their first time away from home. They’ve flown the nest for awhile, usually in a city that is not in their home county. And so our purpose is ultimately to help them get their degree and provide them with a support structure similar to the GAA club or soccer club or whatever it was they knew at home and felt like was a safe place for them.
“They could be under pressure financially, trying to find a place to rent. I know fellas that are living in digs now because of the housing issue. I’ve had guys over the last eight years come to me about how they’re struggling with a certain course. So you try to find ways to help them with assignments and end up being at times a guidance counsellor to them.
“It could be a 100 different things, a relationship issue or whatever, but ultimately you’re there to let them know you’re there. And to help remind them: Hey, for all I’ve got on, I’ve got this good thing going up here, I’ve got friends that are into this GAA thing as well, I’ve got a purpose.
"So when the lectures or times are hard, they can still go, ‘I’ve got training tonight. I’ve just got to get through this. Next term this module will be over and I’ll have one I’ll like better. I’ll be okay.’”
And so that’s why he doesn’t sweat small stuff that can be built up into big stuff.
“There is nothing inherently wrong with young men and young women socialising. It’s actually part of growing up. What you don’t want is a binge culture and I think in the GAA we’re moving away from that.
“When you’re dealing with college students you have to recognise there are certain big college nights out. So before Christmas say and there’s a big event on the Thursday, we’ll go, ‘Right, we’ll try to get our game played on the Wednesday.’ That way they can get their sporting experience in that day and then on the Thursday night they can have their social experience.
“So after Christmas when you’re asking something off them, they’re willing to say, ‘Well he played ball with us, we’ll play with him here.’ Derek McGrath has called it the Law of Reciprocity. I think it’s a great phrase and a great outlook.”
And as for players having to combine inter-county and Fitzgibbon hurling at this time of year? Again, he doesn’t see the big deal. “Sure it’s been that way forever! I could be wrong and there’ll be other Fitzgibbon managers laughing at me but there’s very few county players training with their Fitzgibbon teams when both setups are in the thick of it.
“I always say to the boys we want the Fitzgibbon to be a vehicle that helps them become inter-county players rather than hinders them. So after our last game I told the lads, ‘Get your head around intercounty for the rest of the week, we’ll train the rest of the boys here.’”
His job is to make that session as good as possible. Now it’s Podge’s too. Last season he struggled to give it the focus it deserved as he was juggling it with still playing football for Clare. Last summer the body told him his inter-county days were over but that by making that call it would prolong his dual days with the club.
The fact the club season doesn’t coincide with the collegiate one has also helped him give Mary I and his cousin Jamie his all this winter.
Together they constitute a dream team, at least for each other.
“Podge has had the experience of winning All-Irelands and counties with his siblings,” notes Wall, “even as recently as last October [with the Cratloe footballers]. I never got to experience that with my brother [Phillip] though I did coach him with both the college and the club.
"And the way things fell for us, I never got to play with Podge. So the chance to team up with him here and collaborate about something we’re so passionate about has been lovely.”
Ellen better get used to the cuppas – and salt and pepper shakers being moved around – at midnight in the kitchen.
