Don’t expect a classic, warns Model star Chin
LEE CHIN has warned Wexford and Waterford supporters that the sold-out All-Ireland quarter-final at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, may ‘not be pretty’.
Both sides employ a sweeper system, meaning today’s battle is not likely to be one for the traditionalists or hurling purists. ‘I won’t deny that ourselves and Waterford are playing a very similar type of game at the minute,’ Chin concedes. ‘So, I can’t imagine that their game plan or our game plan will be the reason for a victory ford are very comfortable with what the Clare native expects from his players. He concedes that it took time to adjust to his vision at the start of the year, but he feels that it has become second nature now for the players.
‘If you were to sit at home and think about the game plan constantly, you would tie your mind up in knots,’ Chin says. ‘The real objective to game plans is at the start of the year when you are trying to perfect it, that you work on it so much, it
‘Both teams will go head to head and it will come down to who wants it the most. I can’t imagine that it will be a classic, or even a pretty game. I just think it will be a game of pure slog and hard work.’
Despite the criticism that the sweeper system receives, Chin feels that it has certainly improved Wexford this year and is content that the team is playing it.
‘The game plan that we have this year is a lot more effective than we have had in the last number of years. We are all very happy with it,’ he insisted. becomes so ingrained in your subconscious that it is instinct. ‘When we get a game plan now, we don’t have to think about it because we have practised it so much. It’s not a thought process, it is just how you play now and it comes naturally to you now. ‘When Davy first came in, you find yourself going through a thought process in a lot of games, wondering where I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to be doing. But as the weeks and months go by, that comes more naturally and that’s how you start performing.’ And now the game plan has become instinct. It means that two teams with deeply embedded sweeper systems will clash this afternoon. It won’t be pretty, as Chin freely admits. It might come down to who has the stomach for battle. And who has the leaders. Chin’s leadership qualities that were honed in Wolfe Tone Villas have already served Wexford well this summer. And may do so again.