Galway hurling has been through a difficult few months, and the summer is unlikely to ease the pressure on the Tribesmen as they face the challenge of the Championship.
After a campaign in which they made it to the All-Ireland final in 2015, only to suffer defeat at the hands of Kilkenny, a player upheaval saw manager Anthony Cunningham leave the setup.
New boss Micheál Donoghue has a tough task ahead of him following a poor league campaign which ended in relegation, but Collins believes that it wasn't all bad.
"It was a disappointing League campaign we had. But we learned a lot. We bled a lot of younger players and that’ll stand to us."
Both the pain of that final loss and the departure of Cunningham now mean that there's a huge amount of extra pressure on the team to perform, something which Collins thinks can spur the side on to go one step further this time around.
"We lost in 2012 and had a shocking campaign in 2013 and it took us until 2015 to get back," said Collins. "Then we’re up a couple of points at half time and we lose it. It’s still a bitter pill to swallow and why we lost it is still unanswered but we have to try and go out and right the wrongs."
Speaking at the launch of the 'Get Breathless for COPD’ charity cycle, Collins admitted that now that the players have gotten what they want in terms of the management, there are no excuses left.
"Anything other than an All-Ireland is not going to be good enough. That’s what the pressure is and if you shy away from that where are you going to go?
"We wanted change and we got change. Now we have to fulfill our side."
Via The42.ie
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