Collins an icon of stability in time of managerial flux

Amid all the managerial tumult and to-ing and fro-ing this autumn, one set-up has remained constant.

All around the country, it seemed county boards everywhere were frantically punching the phones, casting around for a willing recruit from the dwindling pool of inter-county managers. A few are still stuck in that process.

Pundits' chairs were vacated as long-time talking heads decided to give it a crack at the coalface. Recently retired Dublin footballers were getting calls out of the blue asking whether they were at much next year. In Mayo, whole backroom teams were being sent forth for consideration.

But in Clare, nothing ever changes.

The longest serving manager in inter-county football - and now inter-county GAA following Brian Cody's departure in July - Colm Collins is set to prolong his reign into a 10th season.

Collins had struck a wistful (rather than recriminatory) tone in the aftermath of their ultimately lop-sided loss to a resurgent Derry in June's All-Ireland quarter-final, leading the assembled to wonder whether this was to be his valedictory season in charge and that he was now content he'd done as much as he could.

Nonetheless, he held fire on any definitive pronouncements and informed the media that, much and all as he respected them, they would not be the first people to know about his intentions one way or the other.

It will be his tenth one-year term in a row. Once again, the feedback from the players was too good for him to countenance leaving.

"I'm there since 2014. And it's always been a one-year term that I've taken," he told RTÉ Sport this week.

"It was the same again this winter. The players reviewed the seasons and if they came back with any negative stuff I was gone, I would have stepped down no