Nathan Collins tries to take positives from poor Luxembourg performance

Irish Daily Mirror

10-06-2025

Nathan Collins knows Ireland's performance in Luxembourg wasn't good enough but the skipper is still drawing on the positives.The Boys in Green laboured to a 0-0 draw and nearly won it at the death when Jack Taylor smashed a shot off the crossbar.But despite a frustrating night, Ireland are still unbeaten in their four games this year going into the World Cup campaign in September.Brentford ace Collins said: 'A lot of things weren't right. Before the game we didn't want it to be that last game, end of season friendly feel to it.'We didn't want to be that passive and wanted to get after them more but we weren't at that.'But considering we're nowhere near our best, we still dug out a clean sheet. But we all know that was nowhere near our best, and we have so much more to give.'Collins continued: 'We're lucky that the result still carries momentum. The way we played we could have lost that.'We didn't deserve to win but to sit in and defend the way we did, we didn't deserve to lose.'Credit to Max O'Leary, he's been in the camp a long time and not got his caps but made two great saves.'Doc (Matt Doherty) got a tackle in and Knighty was class in front of us. We weren't at our best but we defended well, dug in and had our chances'And when we come back in September we will build on that. We have great momentum and we haven't lost in a few games.'We know there are more things to work on and get better at. Going unbeaten in four into a qualifier, I've never experienced that before so it's good.'Collins played every minute of the Premier League season for Brentford and has been a mainstay for Ireland too.Most of the players are heading straight on their holidays from Luxembourg, so Collins feels there are reasons for the flat performance.'It's been a long season,' he said. 'I've been trying to push myself to the limit. I'm physically tired, but I'm more mentally tired. I doubt I'm the only one in that boat.'We've pushed ourselves to the max this season. Away to Luxembourg, it's not an easy game.'They played a really good game, they were very good, they pressed high and that probably hurt us as well.'I know the passiveness was there but we still made them force things, we still defended in a nice solid way and made them go around us.'And Collins also believes that some fringe players have put their hands up for selection against Hungary in September after capitalising on the absence of others.'I think that's the whole point of this, you want players to come in, you want players under pressure for the next person,' he added.'You want to have that feeling, that the people behind you are pushing for your spot, it's a great thing.'