Nathan Collins is no longer Irish football’s shiny new thing, but there’s no harm in that as he strives to get back on track.
That mantle now belongs to Evan Ferguson, the 18-year-old who is taking the Premier League and, it seems, international football in his stride with the minimum of fuss.
Collins, 21, can relate to it as he was the toast of the nation last summer after scoring a goal for the ages in a four-game window where he was Ireland’s standout player.
His mazy run and finish away to Ukraine in Poland capped off a run of outstanding displays where he announced his arrival on the international stage.
Ferguson only scored a tap-in against Latvia! Although nobody doubts that was the first of many he will bag in a green jersey.
As a centre-back, Collins knows the goal-scoring opportunities will be limited but Monday against France would be the opportune time to weigh in with another.
On the back of his heroics last June, Collins became the most expensive player in Irish history when he completed a €24 million move from Burnley to Wolves.
And having played regularly in Wolves’ team at the start of the season, there was a sense they might build a team around the Leixlip lad.
As career trajectories go, Collins was going all the way to the top.
But suddenly he’s discovering that football doesn’t always go to plan as he was dropped and has only appeared three times off the bench for his club since January.
Capped 11 times, Collins will start against France tomorrow when tasked with belying his relative inexperience at this level to shackle France’s superstars.
But he insists his lack of game time won’t hold him back, as he deals with football’s roller-coaster of emotions. In fact, this could be the making of him.
Collins said: “I've been here before. There have been spells where I haven't played. I've a good background behind me, looking after me and keeping me well.
“Me, my family, and everyone behind me, we're strong, we're willing to work hard again and get back into the team.
“That's what I'm about, that's who I am, and that's my personality. These are the ups and downs. Don't get too high, and don't get too low. It is what it is.”
Collins continued: “I'm fit and raring to go. I look after myself. If I'm not playing, I still do the right things.
“I'm in the gym and when you're not in the team, you get to work on different things you can't work on when you are in the team.
“I took the positives out of it, I made the best out of it and I worked on what I needed to work on and I'm raring to go.”
If the spotlight only shined on Collins last summer, it’s very much in Ferguson’s face this week ahead of his biggest game of a career still in its infancy.
It has been a circus, but Collins is backing the teenager to take all of that attention in his stride knowing full well what it’s like.
Collins is not on social media himself, and claims not to have been lured towards the headlines of his own making last summer.
“I know Evan,” he said. “I've talked to him a lot. He has a good head on his shoulders. He's a good lad, he's humble, he's down to earth and he has a lot about him.
“It won't affect him at all. It'll breeze by him and he's a good lad, so it's not going to affect him.”
Collins watched France’s 4-0 demolition of the Netherlands with his Ireland team-mates on Friday night but is refusing to overhype the World Cup finalists.
“If you build it up too much, you could be in trouble,” he said of the sold-out showdown at Aviva Stadium.
“You want to play against the best in the world and don't get me wrong, I'm really excited, I can't wait to go, but right now, I'm keeping myself controlled and calm.”
That’s all well and good, but how do you stop Kylian Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann?
Collins laughed and said: “I’ve no tricks to get Mbappe. I have to be smarter to get him.
“I'm not stubborn enough to say I'm quicker than him. He's going to be quicker than me so I have to read the game better.
“I'm playing the way the gaffer and the coaches want me to, and that's all I can do. 10 games have gone in a flash. I've enjoyed every moment and I just want to keep going.
“I'm not stopping to think if I'm better or worse than I was at the start. I want to keep improving and I want to create memories with Ireland.”
