LEE DUBLIN HIS EFFORT
Chin puts in hard yards to be fit to face Blues in crunch opener
LEE CHIN is back in full training and raring to go ahead of Wexford’s crunch home Leinster Championship opener against Dublin in two and a half weeks’ time.
Chin (31) missed the last two games of the National League with a hamstring issue, which has hampered him for a number of years.
It goes back to a serious knee injury the Faythe Harriers man sustained playing in the ‘Super 11’ in New York in 2019.
At the time experts suggested he build up the knee and the surrounding muscles, rather than undergo surgery.
“The body is fine at the moment,” said Chin, speaking at yesterday’s launch of the Leinster Championship at Collins Barracks.
“I obviously struggled with a little hamstring niggle during the National League and I’ve just been working on that the last few weeks so I’m back in full training now.
“I think it was probably the first pre-season I was able to participate in two years.
“I couldn’t participate in the last two years with pre-season so you’re kind of feeling like you’re behind throughout the season and trying to catch up when you don’t get a full pre-season underneath you.
“Everything was moving quite nicely and I suppose the setback in the hamstring is due to an injury a couple of years ago with the PCL (posterior cruciate ligament) in my knee.
“Obviously the hamstring probably comes under a bit of pressure with that now and again.”
Chin says there is “no real pattern” to why the injury happens.
“It’s just a certain movement that kind of irritates the hamstring now and again because of the elasticity in the knee,” he continued.
“That’s what I put it down to maybe but all is well at the minute and I’m improving things on that end.
“I hurt myself in the Clare game and I missed the following week against Waterford.
“The week of the Cork game was when I was due to be back.
“That was my time period for rehab and I potentially could have made the Cork game. I was feeling good that week.
“But it was just too much of a risk to take and you’re just on the deadline of when you return.
“Usually when you’re coming back, in our camp anyway, you have to perform in two full sessions to be deemed as fit to play again and I just didn’t have that week.
“I was only back the day of the Cork game.
“That was my three or four weeks of rehab done so I just missed that game. It just came a week too soon for me.
“The following week I was back in full training and I’ve been in full training since.”