Cullen's DJ Collins loving his role promoting GAA at third level
DJ Collins on the sideline at Croke Park. The Cork native is a highly regarded coach
CORKMAN DJ Collins is a very well-regarded coach with his finger on the pulse of Ladies Gaelic Football.
A native of Cullen, Collins is currently the Ladies Gaelic Football Higher Education Colleges secretary.
This is a role that sees him organise, administrate and liaise with colleges and universities to promote Ladies Football in third-level education.
“I am really enjoying it and it is a great way just to help the game grow, ” Collins tells The Echo.
“I get to meet so many different people and characters, in different universities and backgrounds.
“You are meeting good sportspeople, coaches and sharing ideas.
“If you look at myself, I wouldn’t have grown in coaching or management in ladies football as much as I did, if it wasn’t for the third Level.
“It was through that I got to meet the likes of John Cleary and Shane Ronayne. I would never have come across paths with them unless it was through the colleges. You are meeting high-level coaches that way.
“Then working with the players, there is no way I would have come from no background in Ladies Football, it was only through the colleges football and coaching would I have gotten to work with the higher calibre of player that I do in UL.
“I will always be grateful to the colleges and UL for giving me the opportunity as well. Then for growing into the national committee and developing the game that way as well.”
DJ Collins also is very much involved with UL in growing and developing Ladies Gaelic Football, where among his duties is coaching the O’Connor Cup team.
The Yoplait O’Connor Cup is at a very high standard at the present moment and reflects the strong level Ladies Football also is at, with some top-quality senior inter-county players on show.
DCU have a team that contains All-Ireland winners and All-Stars such as Jennifer Dunne and Carla Rowe (Dublin) and Emma Duggan (Meath). UCC have a number of members of Shane Ronayne’s Cork Senior panel involved, including as Katie Quirke and Sadhbh O’Leary. While NUI Galway have talented Cork star Melissa Duggan in their ranks.
“At the O’Connor Cup level, the teams at pre-season before the championship starts, their challenge matches would be against senior inter-county teams and they would be a good workout for both.
“It does improve the quality. If you are playing with someone from a different county that is playing senior inter-county, and you are learning from them and they are learning from you, your own game is going to improve.
“So when you go back to your own county then, it lifts the game the whole way across the country.”
Collins’s UL side are into the semi-final stages. The conclusion of the O’Connor Cup is set to take place over the weekend March 11-12.
UL are set to face the winners of NUI Galway and Queens University Belfast in the final four, with UCC and DCU doing battle in the other semi-final.
Assessing the campaign for his O’Connor Cup UL side, Collins feels they're well set.
“We have two weeks to prepare for that semi-final and make sure that we are ready. It is just a case of minding our own house, get ourselves sorted out and get our own game-plan working. We just want to keep things simple and that they can execute easy enough.
“It has been a rebuilding season. If you look at the squad the last time the O’Connor Cup was played in 2020, when we got to the weekend but everything was pulled before the semi-finals.
“That squad in 2020 we had 28 players and of that there is only five left in UL. So we had to do a total rebuild.
“So for this year, we put a big drive on getting as many girls as we could playing football in the college. We developed our O’Connor Cup and Giles team [ for the UL second team] and trained together. We wanted to give everybody as much of a chance as possible.”
DJ Collins is one of the top coaches generally in Ladies Gaelic Football at the moment. He would dearly love to bring the O’Connor Cup back to UL in the next few weeks.
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