Trendsetter Neil Collins has designs on securing league success with Roscommon

No, Neil Collins hasn’t spoken to Paul Galvin as much as they share interests beyond football namely fashion.

Like the Kerry star before his return to the green and gold meant a relocation to his native county, the Roscommon corner back has based himself in Dublin to pursue a career in the business.

“I’m trying to sail my own ship!” he says, of not being influenced by Galvin.

Having studied sports science and health in DCU, he is currently the students’ union vice-president for welfare as he hopes to embark on launching his brand, Cryptic Clique.

“I’ve always been interested in music and style. They’ve always been something I’ve been interested in outside of sport. The two of them are quite closely connected. I thought it was a hobby but it’s something now I want to pursue as a career and I want to work on.

“A lot of my friends are interested and that kind of stuff so I guess I’ve got some connections in that industry so I am learning a lot about it. I think if you have belief that you can achieve something and you’re willing to break a few doors down, you’ll get there. But yeah, it’s certainly untraditional so it’s something I am having to work hard on.”

Collins is not yet at a stage where he is comfortable to show his wears to the public. At the Allianz Twitter questions and answers session on Monday, his old DCU team-mate, David Kelly, sent in a jokey query relating to his chosen career path but he maintains he’s not seen as the shaper in the Roscommon panel.

“It’s gone beyond the stage now where the lads have a laugh when I walk in. I think you earn your reputation on the pitch as a footballer, not outside it. When I play or I train, I train hard. So it doesn’t affect it at all.”

Ahead of Sunday’s Division 2 final with Down, Collins maintains Roscommon were good enough to make the leap to the top flight, even if manager John Evans may have suggested otherwise during the campaign.

“As you go through the league you’re not thinking, ‘We want to get promoted’, you’re looking at each match and saying, ‘We need to perform in each game’. Then it comes to a stage towards the end of the league, if you have performed in those games, you say, ‘We’re in a position to get promoted’. It was an ambition to get promoted but we did take it each game at a time to see where we are come the last two or three games.”

Collins watched the U21s’ All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Tyrone on TV last Saturday. He isn’t concerned that, for all their success in Connacht (he himself won a provincial medal at that grade in 2010), they haven’t claimed an All-Ireland.

“The senior team is the main team in any county and underage, in the bigger picture, is about developing players and giving them an environment where they can play at a high level. The Roscommon players will have learned a lot from that game, that they have more work to do. But we’ll take a couple of players from that team and hopefully make them compete at senior so I wouldn’t be too worried. The senior team is where it’s at.”