“It would have easy to retire,” Miskella says, “but it didn’t really come down to that.

“It’s not about that, it’s about coming down here on a Tuesday and Thursday, that’s what I would have missed. It’s not about getting to finals, that comes secondary, but it didn’t really enter my head.

“I said I’d play another year anyway, thank God I stayed on for the second one! Then last year, I didn’t think about it, the way we were knocked out, I said I’d have to give it another go.

“A lot of lads wanted to stick together, we knew that we’d lose a few to travelling so we couldn’t miss too many more.”

Ballincollig come into Sunday’s final against Carbery Rangers having despatched last year’s two finalists, Nemo Rangers and Castlehaven, in their last two games. Before those fine wins, though, a replay was needed to get over Cork IT, and three late points were required to secure the draw in the first game.

“We were lucky that night, people might have been thinking totally different of us this year if we had lost,” Miskella says.

“We managed to scrape it out and luckily the second day we played a lot better, we won well enough in the end.

“We have a good few characters in the team, especially defence, I think they tightened up a bit. We were wasteful enough that day but we got a few scores at the start of the second half and it was nip and tuck from there.”

Against champions Nemo in the semi, Ballincollig gave their opponents a lead of a goal and three points, but still managed to drag themselves back into the game.

“Nemo are Nemo, they’re clinical when they get the chance, it was tight for the first ten minutes and then all of a sudden they were six points up.

“That’s what they can do to you but thankfully we dug in there and tightened up and took our chances. Once we got within a point of them, it stayed close, we didn’t give them any more runs at it.”

In Ned English, Ballincollig have a manager who has previously led Duhallow to the county final as well as enjoying Munster club success with Limerick side Dromcollogher-Broadford.

Miskella has been pleased to see the understanding between team and management grow as the year has gone on.

“He has a lot of good ideas,” he says. He’s a good coach, he talks football all day, he’ll never talk about anything else.

“He has put his ideas across and, to be fair, it has taken time. Even in championship this year, we have looked decidedly awful at times and other times we have looked very good. He’s a good coach and lately it has been clicking.” As a garda based in Clonakilty, Miskella is in close proximity to Sunday’s opponents, just a few miles more down the N71. He can sympathise with the Rosscarbery club’s quest.

“Carbery Rangers are a very good team and they have some great players, I’d know a lot them,” he says.

“They’ve been knocking on the door, getting to semi-finals and they’ve been really consistent. They deserve to win a county championship – but it’s just that I don’t want that to happen on Sunday!”