Lee Chin: 'Paranoia is good for a sportsperson'

By John Harrington

Ahead of Wexford’s Leinster SHC championship opener against Kildare on Saturday, Lee Chin chatted with GAA.ie to reflect on his career to date, his determination to be the best hurler he can be, and his hopes for the future.

GAA.ie: Lee, you’re about to embark on your 14^th season of inter-county championship hurling, did you think you’d still be going strong by now when you started in 2013?

Lee Chin: I wouldn't have ever put a timeline on my career. I never would have set out a date or an age of what I thought maybe I'd finish up then. Throughout your career you're hoping as long as you stay fit and the body holds up, you'll go until you maybe don't want to do it anymore. That's not the case for me, I still very much enjoy it.

I love playing the game and I love the training and I love the atmosphere. I love getting to see the lads a couple of times a week and putting the hard work in. Then obviously the big days, the big championship days.

Over the course of my career I would have loved to have had more of them, the bigger days. But I was lucky enough to be in a couple of them and that's the kind of stuff that keeps you alive.

GAA.ie: What does Wexford hurling mean to you?

LC: I just think you're proud of doing it. You're proud to represent your county, your family, your people and your club.

I suppose when you think back, for myself, what it means to you goes back to when you were a kid. When I was a kid I knew how much it inspired me to watch Wexford playing. I remember back to my very younger days where I'd be at my grandparents' house.

My family didn't have a big hurling background but my grandfather was a fan of the game. He loved Wexford. Not that he would have been to the matches much but he would have been the one person that was my link to hurling.

I just remember being young in the living room with him and watching hurling matches. Just the feeling that it would have given me and how much it would have inspired me as a kid. Not only watching Wexford play, watching hurling, just watching the game itself.

I'd run back out onto the street immediately with the hurl and ball and you'd be just trying to get a game going. Just all those feelings when I think back, it's going to give me a good feeling.

GAA.ie: Despite a relative lack of success compared to some other counties, hurling clearly means so much to Wexford people. Are you driven by a desire to give something back to your loyal supporters?

LC: Absolutely. It's one of the big motivations you have I suppose. Particularly in Wexford anyway, the people and the fans have been starved of success over the years. They love getting behind you and they love the big days as well. Again, I probably repeat myself, I probably haven't been involved in enough big days as well.

The joy that it brings to people when you're there and you're at it. You're competing to win something. It's a special feeling. It's a big part of why we do it and the motivation is to make other people happy.

Hurling means so much to Wexford people. There's a lot of great history in Wexford with hurling people. You just want to make them proud of what you're doing and you want to be able to give them their big days out. Wexford people, they want to dream of winning All-Irelands again. You're doing your best to try and make those dreams happen.

GAA.ie: Have the last few years been frustrating for this Wexford team? It seems like there have been lots of ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’ in terms of matches lost that maybe could or should have been won?

LC: To be honest, that sounds like our storyline every year really. There's a lot of years where we've had games that we felt we should have won or you might have messed up in one game where you probably should have gotten over the line.

Whatever it might be, I suppose that's sport and everyone is there to compete. The opposition is always there to beat you also. That's what their job is to do. Look, there's been years gone by we just didn't come out the right side of results.

That would have been huge results, I suppose, in the season to make it to another final or something. Look, even thinking back, I think it was two or three years ago now up in Corrigan Park against Antrim.

Obviously Cardigan Park is a difficult place to go. But they would have beaten us that day by two points. It was my first time being beaten against Antrim in a championship.

Then a week or two later, you go to Wexford Park and you beat Galway. It's the first time I've beaten Galway in a championship as well. You're thinking, God, if you just had of gotten a familiar result against Antrim.

I suppose you look back and reflect on the years of thinking, God, it just seems to be always one game that lets us down somewhere. Other years it's Kilkenny, I suppose, or a Galway game as well. But just the year you beat Galway and you end up being beaten, I suppose, by a team that you would have gotten a result against over hte years.

It's moments like that, I suppose, that have you scratching your head. That you would, obviously, be thinking of games that, if you'd have got over the line there, you potentially could have ended up back in the Leinster finals. Look, there is results over the years that obviously didn't go the way we would have wanted to.

GAA.ie: When Wexford hurl on emotion they can be a hard team to beat, but you need more than that?

LC: Yeah, you can't rely on that emotion piece. You need it and try to tap into it I suppose, but after the emotion stuff it comes down to your KPIs and your performance.

If you're hitting your numbers and your targets that you've set out, you're giving yourself a really good chance of winning the game. It doesn't always necessarily mean that you will win it, but more often than not, you would. I think those are the things you've got to fall back on in terms of going after a lot of the characteristics of the game that you're trying to get your numbers up.

More often than not when we don't hit those numbers, we're not on the winning side of a result. Those are the things that I suppose we probably are a bit inconsistent in at times over the years. Every year you come back, you just want to rectify them, you want to improve it, you want to go after them again.

I suppose in the heat of battle at times, some things mightn't be going your way and I suppose you bring it all back to your performance on the day and things that you didn't get right. It might be puck outs, it might be shape, it might be tackle counts, it might be scores, your shooting efficiency. You could have everything right on a day and if your shooting efficiency is off, you don't tend to win the game.

You could own possession, you could have more tackles, but at the end of the day, you've got to be scoring, you've got to be putting the ball in the back of the net or over the bar. Those are the things that you need to really focus on.

GAA.ie: No-one seems to be talking about Wexford this year as even provincial championship contenders. Does it suit ye to come in under the radar like that?

LC: I think it suits every team. Going under the radar suits every team. I'll be honest, I don't think there's ever over-hype of Wexford anyhow. We're happy enough with the way we're training. We're happy enough with the way things are moving there.

I think some of the new faces that are going to be seen in this year's Championship is going to be just a new calibre of player that's going to be involved. I'm excited to see what they're going to bring to the Championship for Wexford. They're great guys and I'm just looking forward to getting off the pitch with them and having a go at it.

There’s a lot of young lads in Wexford at the minute. They're really hungry and they've got a lot of potential and they really want to make an impact in Wexford.

This year, a lot of them are going to get their chance and it's just exciting to take the field with a new level of hunger in some of the younger guys there. Just looking forward to getting onto the field and competing with them.

I just think, for ourselves at the moment, we're just really trying to focus on performance. Obviously, when you're trying to get back to a Leinster final, it's always a difficult task.

But it's definitely not one that we see out of our sights. We want to get off to a good start in the championship. We've Kildare in the first round and it's a big one for us. We played them in the last game of the league in Wexford Park and it was obviously very much one-sided on the day. We expect that to be a really tough test come Saturday.

GAA.ie: Are you still trying to prove yourself to yourself by comparing your performance level to previous years?

LC: I think it's probably part of that drive in me that you're trying to come back better every year, you're trying to improve, you're trying to have a bigger impact, you're trying to have a bigger influence. All those things are fairly evident to me. I'd never rest on my laurels and think whatever I produced in the past is good enough now. I always want to be better and I always strive for that and you go after numbers.

I probably came from a generation of hurling where it was making the transition over to being a possession-based game. When I first came on the scene it was pretty much like winning your own ball. You hit the ball up he field and you let the forwards deal with it. The backs don't come too far off the field and they don't get on the scoreboard as often as the backs do now.

It's been an interesting transition throughout my career and one that I feel I've adapted to quite well. I think the game itself is hitting new heights every year. There's always new stuff to go after.

I do enjoy it, I enjoy still trying to get the most out of myself, get the most out of my body. Trying to get fitter, still trying to get stronger. Albeit at a certain age you do have to understand that those things do tend to level out.

But it's no lack of trying anyway. As an athlete I think that's the mindset you've got to be in. And obviously when it comes to the hurling front as well, you want to improve your skill set, you want to improve your game awareness, your knowledge, your oppositions and how you probably go after certain games.

GAA.ie: Noel McGrath said recently at his age it’s reassuring when you play a good game because you have doubts the older you get that you can still cut it at the highest level. Can you see where he’s coming from?

LC: I think as a sports person, paranoia is a good thing. When you're young, that kind of stuff doesn't exist, you believe in yourself so much, and then you get so much of an experience you realise there's ups and downs.

I suppose that leaves room for a little bit of doubt at times, but that little bit of doubt in yourself sometimes can be the motivator. For me, it's the same, I'd be a bit paranoid at times thinking, "am I getting slower, am I getting weaker, am I sharp, am I hitting as hard as I used to?" All those things you'd assess and you'd be very sensitive towards as well.

Sometimes the performance or something that you've achieved in a game or the impact that you might make in a game can be quite reassuring to you. Because, again, like I said, that bit of doubt that might exist sometimes, it's there. When you do end up achieving something in a game or doing something in a game that reminds you of your old self, it's still there. You do have to remind yourself of those things now and again. So yeah, I do, I can understand where he's coming from.

GAA.ie: Have you thought much about life after hurling?

LC: It's probably not something that I overly think about. You're just so into it and it's just there. You don't tend to look at a time when it mightn't be there. But I just believe sport will always be a part of my life, be it as a player or some way involved other than that.

So I haven't really thought of life after yet, which is probably a foolish thing. But, I mean, anyone that has had sport involved in their life as much as myself, it's obviously a bit of an adjustment when it's over. But, like I said, as long as you keep it a part of your life in some way, I think it'll help.

GAA.ie: What would it mean to you to win another Leinster title with Wexford?

LC: Look, it'd be brilliant. For what I suppose we achieved in 2019 and what it done for, I suppose, the county and the people, Just to see that again before I finish up, it'd be fantastic. Again, you don't put an age or a date on when your day is done, but you'd give anything to experience it all again. And, yeah, it'll be massive if we could get over the line.