ONLY a few yards will separate Tommy Craig and John Collins in the technical areas when St Mirren take on Celtic at lunchtime today.
The home side's manager, and the visitors' assistant, will see and hear plenty of each other over the 90 minutes. In truth it does not need a meeting of their respective clubs to bring this pair together. They have made sure they are around each other time and time again, and they are the closest of friends.
Craig coached Collins at Hibernian and Celtic, and then was his assistant manager at Hibs and Charleroi. Craig is the elder by 17 years but they share a football philosophy and, on the training ground at least, they have been soul-mates.
Both of them have benefitted from their relationship although Collins' reliance on Craig at Hibs once led to a mortifying press conference. Craig sat beside Collins as he took questions from the reporters about why things were going badly at Easter Road. He alternated between munching an apple and whispering bland suggested answers into Collins' ear, which Collins then repeated out loud. It was an absurd episode in which Craig, in particular, acted as if under the belief he had become temporarily invisible to the reporters who were watching the pantomime only a few feet away.
To Collins, though, Craig has never been anything other than an invaluable sounding board and guide. He lavished him with the highest praise yesterday. "First and foremost Tommy was my coach at Hibs when I was a kid and he was my coach at Celtic. I had lots of good coaches and Tommy was the best coach I worked with, he taught me so much as a young player. I have huge respect for him as a coach and as a person.
"He has a difficult job at St Mirren, lots of new players, key players going out the door in the summer, not a lot of money to spend. He's had a difficult start but they got their first league win the other week so that lifts them off the bottom."
Collins played for Hibs, Celtic, Monaco, Everton and Fulham, and 68 times for Scotland. That involved serving a lot of talented coaches. To say Craig was the best of them all was quite a claim. "I say that 100 percent, he was a huge influence on my career. I was a young boy, desperate to learn, desperate to be pushed and Tommy is a training ground coach who loves getting boys out on a training pitch morning and afternoon and working on their weaknesses. That was exactly what I needed, I loved a coach who would push me all the time.
"Anybody who has been on a training pitch with Tommy will tell you his sessions are organised, high tempo, and you never go on the pitch just to pass time. You go on the pitch to sweat and to get better. When I went to manage Hibs he was the first guy I thought about taking with me. I was lucky as a young manager to get such an experienced coach who had coached at Newcastle for nine years, Celtic and so on. He was perfect for me."
Craig followed Collins as manager of Charleroi in Belgium but lasted only five months. "It was very difficult managing in another language," said Collins. "Hopefully he'll not have that problem at St Mirren . . ."
Craig has had plenty of other difficulties. St Mirren lost their first five SPFL Premiership games, beat Partick Thistle in the league, and then went out of the League Cup to them in midweek. It has been a grim start to the season and has deepened the opposition to Craig which was evident on the day he was appointed as Danny Lennon's successor.
Many supporters groaned at that, seeing it as an unimaginative, dull appointment. "A lot of supporters will never have seen a training session or seen how he delivers a session," said Collins. "So that's not what I would call a qualified opinion. If you ask any player who has been on a training pitch with Tommy Craig, I guarantee that every single one of them, if they wanted to get better and wanted to work, will have loved what he delivers on a training pitch.
"We are judged eventually - managers and coaches - by results. But I think you have also got to judge managers and coaches by performances. Over the period of a season your performances will usually get you results."
Judgement will not be delayed on Collins and his manager, Ronny Deila, if Craig delivers a result for his team at St Mirren Park today. Criticism will be swift and savage for the champions given that they are still outside the top three in the table. Jason Denayer will miss the game with an ankle injury, which causes a headache given that defenders Mikael Lustig, Adam Matthews and Charlie Mulgrew are also unavailable. Denayer is the only one of them who should be back for next Thursday's Europa League game at home to Dinamo Zagreb.
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