{"id":362073,"date":"2026-03-24T06:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T06:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/362073\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T06:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T06:13:09","slug":"nathan-collins-calls-for-cool-heads-and-dark-arts-ahead-of-irelands-prague-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/362073\/","title":{"rendered":"Nathan Collins calls for cool heads and \u2018dark arts\u2019 ahead of Ireland\u2019s Prague challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Nathan Collins training at the FAI's National Campus ahead of the trip to Prague. Photo: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/5456d389-9823-438b-8cf9-432dfc1635a4.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Nathan Collins training at the FAI&#8217;s National Campus ahead of the trip to Prague. Photo: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p>Aidan Fitzmaurice in Prague<\/p>\n<p>Today at 06:30<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Nathan Collins has told his Ireland teammates to be ready to use the \u201cdark arts\u201d if needed in the sold-out World Cup play-off against Czechia in Prague on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">And ahead of a duel which could well define the outcome of the game \u2013 with Irish defender Collins going head-to-head with top scorer Patrik Schick \u2013 the home side\u2019s star says he expects nothing less than a \u201cfight\u201d from Heimir Hallgrimsson\u2019s men.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nathan Collins training at the FAI&#8217;s National Campus ahead of the trip to Prague. Photo: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile Aidan&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2049,61,60,43,102024],"class_list":{"0":"post-362073","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-aidan-fitzmaurice","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-world-cup-2026"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}