Lee Chin hails ‘hungry’ Jack Guiney impact
Guiney (24) came off the bench at half-time and his second-half display in the 1-17 to 3-25 win has put him in the frame for a start against provincial champions Kilkenny on June 10.
Guiney was involved in Wexford’s first two scores after half-time, before he assisted Aidan Nolan’s goal. Guiney then had a goal ruled out, before he found the back of the Laois net with 18 minutes remaining.
It was a remarkable cameo from the Rathnure man, who hadn’t played senior championship hurling for almost two years. Guiney last lined out for Wexford in June 2015 against Westmeath, before he was dropped from the squad.
He then chose not to play for the county last year, before accepting Davy Fitzgerald’s invitation to return ahead of the 2017 campaign.
Joint-captain Chin said: “Yeah, Jack has been hungry, he’s been out for a long time now and it’s a been a long time since he played championship hurling.
“We knew when Jack got his opportunity, he was going to give it everything he had. He got a goal disallowed there, I didn’t really see anything wrong with it and for his confidence he bagged one then again.
“Delighted for him to be back, delighted he was back scoring as well and it was good to see him getting a game.”
Chin explained how Wexford’s players “drove it themselves” in training recently, as Fitzgerald was unable to have a direct involvement because of his eight-week ban.
Chin reflected: “It seemed a little bit quieter for a certain amount of time until we got a little bit comfortable in our own company I suppose.
“I think the players then drove it themselves, we started getting a bit more vocal and getting a bit louder in the dressing room and making up for him not being there.
“It didn’t really make a difference when we came onto the field.
“Obviously you’d miss his voice on the line there, him driving you on and going a bit crazy. But other than that, we were just totally focused coming into the game.
“We knew what was ahead of us over the last number of weeks, that Davy wasn’t going to be around, and it didn’t really seem to bother us too much. We got the job done.”
As a dry run ahead of the massive Innovate Wexford Park clash with Kilkenny in less than a fortnight, it couldn’t have gone much better for Chin and his colleagues.
But he insists that Wexford are underdogs against the Cats, despite beating them in the Allianz League quarter-final early in early April.
Chin added: “Well, again you are going into a championship game the next day and we are going to be underdogs. It’s in Wexford Park, that’ll be good for us. We are just looking forward to that challenge now and hopefully we can get into a Leinster final.
“They are still the lads that have been ruling hurling over the last few years. We beat them in the league but that means nothing now in championship hurling.”
Chin acknowledged that Wexford got off to a sluggish start against Laois, before comfortably seeing off opponents who finished the game with 13 men.
The powerful forward said: “Yeah, it wasn’t going to be an easy test walking in here with Laois having three games under their belt.
“You could see they started quicker than us, they went three points up and we were lucky enough to get the goal to get us off to a decent start, I suppose.
“Other than that, Laois were tough to break down in the first half and luckily we started knocking over points and got on top of it.”
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