Chin admits Munster fare more attractive to fans

Brendan O'Brien

Lee Chin accepts that the time will inevitably come in the next year or two when the Wexford hurlers will need to stop measuring their progress in incremental gains and start winning trophies.

Damien Fitzhenry, the county’s goalkeeper when a last All-Ireland title was claimed in 1996, put it up to Davy Fitzgerald’s men in late May when stating that either a Leinster title or a place in the last four of this year’s Championship was required.

“Anything less than a Leinster, or definitely getting to an All-Ireland semi or final is no progress on last year,” said Fitzhenry in Croke Park just over a month ago. “If you are talking about progress, you have to be moving on.”

The county’s loss to Kilkenny in the last round of the provincial round robin series ultimately cost Wexford the opportunity to face Galway in the Leinster final for a second straight year and so they begin their Liam MacCarthy chase away to Westmeath this weekend.

“We didn’t look at winning the Liam MacCarthy at the start of the year,” said Chin yesterday. “We totally focused on just getting back to the Leinster final and trying to redeem ourselves for our performance in the Leinster final last year.

“In one way, Damien is right and the fact that there’s one cup left this year (means) we can’t really set our eyes on anything else. It is important that we do win some silverware in the next year or two anyhow.”

Westmeath in Mullingar should be a task within their compass although the midlanders have threatened to blow bigger counties off course this past three summers with Tipperary, Limerick, and Wexford themselves all having to batten down the hatches for periods.

If nothing else, it is an opportunity to wash the Kilkenny game from their hair.

“All credit to Kilkenny, they were nine points down at one stage in the second-half and, notoriously, Kilkenny just never give up. It’s something we are trying to instill in ourselves: That we never give up no matter how far ahead or behind we are in games.”

Wexford looked slick for long periods in Nowlan Park that day but Chin is still undecided as to where the dividing line can be drawn between Kilkenny’s second-half surge and Wexford’s own mental fatigue after four games in as many weeks.

Lee Chin opening up the Cork defence with this mighty point pic.twitter.com/tm1p38ZsxQ

— The GAA (@officialgaa) February 4, 2018

Similar posers were being made last Sunday when Brian Cody’s side defied those who would claim their powers have waned by matching Galway blow for blow in the Leinster decider and claiming a replay which was the least their efforts deserved.

“It was probably good for the rest of Ireland to see that as well, as opposed to Galway coming out with another nine or 10-point win over Kilkenny,” he suggested.

“They really went toe to toe and played a similar brand of hurling on the day.

“It was great actually to see the high fielding, I can’t remember the last day we saw so many high balls being caught and so many 50-50 battles all around the field. It almost brought you back to when the likes of Tommy Walsh and JJ Delaney were playing with the high fielding.”

It was, though, an ultimately disappointing affair and the Leinster Championship, in general, struggled for the spotlight against its southern cousin which produced much more in the way of drama and more competitive games, as an average winning margin of 4.63 to Leinster’s 7.72 would show.

The Munster competition actually drew around 100,000 more spectators to its 11 games than the Leinster version (244,890 to an estimated 143,161) and Chin is open enough to admit that the latter has ground to make up.

“There’s no really hiding the fact that, over a lot of years, the Munster Championship has been probably a little bit more, how would I say it, a little bit more attractive to watch for the fans. The Munster Championship and the Leinster Championship are very different."

“In the Munster Championship most of the teams are about hurling and just the hurling brand, whereas the Leinster teams are a little bit more on the physical side while trying to mix it with hurling. It’s a different brand of hurling really that both provinces are playing.

“Look, when a Leinster team and a Munster team come together you kind of get to see both and which is able to cancel out what.

“The Munster Championship, particularly this year, was probably a little bit more attractive to watch for the fan than the Leinster Championship.”