Hurling: Chin backs penalties in deadlocked games
AN All-Ireland hurling final on a cold December evening being decided by penalties? Sounds all a bit far-fetched but for Wexford hurler Lee Chin it wouldn’t be “the strangest thing we have seen this year.”
With championships now likely to be finished in the same calendar year, it will take sacrifices and separation from the norms of previous years. Deciding an All-Ireland final on penalties, may not be a route the GAA would go down but if it meant getting business wrapped up in the same calendar year, Chin feels it would be worth the experience, citing the conclusion of World Cup finals in this manner.
“It’s straight to penalties (after extratime) and it’s a very exciting 20 minutes of soccer. I can only imagine it would be very exciting for the same thing with hurling,” he suggests.
“There has been a lot of uncertainty around everything this year and a lot of things unpredicted. If that did come about I don’t think it would be the strangest thing to happen. Time is against us in terms of getting things wrapped up.
Replay
“It’s a tough one because no one ever experienced that in (championship) hurling. We played in the Walsh Cup final against Kilkenny in 2018 and it went to ’65s (frees), a strange way to win a game but there was no replay and that’s how you got over the line.”
In the meantime, the provisional structure of the Wexford senior hurling championship, two round robin games in a week, followed by a semi-final and final taking just four weekends to complete by Sunday, August 23, has sparked controversy – though Wexford have yet to finalise dates and may yet add in a quarter-final – and become a focal point for potential club versus county conflict. The local football championship will only commence after the hurling semi-finals have been completed. By wrapping up the hurling championship so early, it points to a longer and cleaner run into a Leinster Championship for the senior hurlers but Chin doesn’t see it that way and is adamant that he will play football with his club.
“I’m extremely positive about the fact that we get a chance to play a block of hurling first and then a block of football after. In all the other years I’ve been playing club championship, in the month of April you play two (football) and two (hurling) and then when the inter-county scene has finished up you play one and then the other, each week.
“But I’m delighted to see that potentially if you make it to county finals that you’re playing it straight out and will have four or five games throughout it, week after week. I find that very exciting because it’s something you can just focus on completely. After that, you can just focus on playing football and I’m happy with that.”
He insists “rumour” and “misinformation” are behind any suggestion that county hurlers won’t play club football championship, once inter-county hurling training resumes.
“I have every intention of playing football with my club. I can’t really speak for any of the rest of the lads, I think there’s 80 per cent on our panel that play club football and I’d imagine that they have every intention of playing club football.
“A lot of our lads that do play football would be key figures and key men for their clubs. And they like playing football, they enjoy it,” Chin adds.
“Throughout that time Davy (Fitzgerald) will be allowing us to go training with our football clubs also. He very much wants us to play football because I suppose for him it’s getting that match fitness again. You’re getting extra games. Football is a running game and, as we know, Wexford like to play that way.”
Between now and then Chin feels inter-county teams should be cleared to gather for meetings ahead of the September 14 date in the GAA’s return-to-activity plan.
“I don’t see an issue with county panels getting together to go through some tactical strategics, video analysis, different types of things. But the way it is at the moment, we’re just waiting to see what the GAA is going to advise.
“I want as much time to prepare myself for that level of hurling because it is a massive step up; obviously you want to be getting around the guys that are at that level with you in terms of your county team and the more time you have, in my opinion, with them you’re going to get up to speed and get ready for championship hurling.”
Chin admits to being demotivated when doubts about the return of games in 2020 persisted but with light at the end of the tunnel he feels somewhat re-energised with the time away helping a number of injuries he carried into the year to clear up.
“It gave me an opportunity to just get back myself back together and get myself right again and moving and functioning the way I want to.”