Earlier in the season Collins told The Leader he had made a concerted effort during the off-season to improve his fitness and was probably the fittest he had been in quite a few years.

“I just felt there was more I could do on the field. [I was] a bit lazy at times. I thought I better do something about it,” he said before their clash with Moree back in April.

On Saturday it was Collins’ allround performance that most impressed Pirates coach Mat Kelly, Kelly particularly commending his scrummaging and his defence.

He was “massive” in defence for them, leading the line out and getting through a mountain of work in defence.

Collins said it was “a bit of a shock” to hear his name read out, and was happy to deflect the praise onto his team-mates.

“If there was one for everyone I think they all deserved it to be honest. Everyone had a pretty good game I thought,” he said.

A key cog in Pirates’ two previous triumphs, he said this year had “definitely been the toughest” in his time at the club.

“We had a lot of injuries but everyone pulled together when we needed to so makes it even more special,” he said.

For Collins the victory was all the more satisfying for the manor in which they dominated Walcha at scrum-time. 

“These last couple of days our main focus was our scrum,” he said.

“We thought the key was to win it up front in that battle, and set a good platform and we did that out there today.”

They did a lot of damage through that second push.

“We talked about that. We talked about not letting off and really scrummaging for the penalty,” Collins said.

“We sort of knew if we kept the pressure on and kept moving forward we’d get a penalty and come away with it and we worked towards it.” ​

It was the second time he’s share premiership glory with brothers Andrew and Sam, after Andrew, the eldest of the trio, moved back to Tamworth this year. 

He was back in Sydney last year but Sam was part of last year’s triumph.