Lee Chin is not saying every ageing intercounty hurler should try to spend three months in Australia over the winter, if at all possible.
All Chin is saying is that it didn’t do him any harm. About to embark on his 14th championship season with Wexford, he feels, and indeed looks, as robustly fit and healthy as ever, his hurling also seeming to improve season-on-season.
“Well, thanks very much,” Chin says of the compliment, his time in Australia also affording him the chance to catch up with some former Wexford team-mates. “It was a just a break, a holiday. I was in Australia before in 2018, for four weeks, and wanted to spend a bit more time there. There was flexibility in work, the boss was very good to me, to allow me to go for three months.
“With hurling, at this stage of my career, when it’s over, it’s over. There’s no finishing for a year at my age and coming back after that. I want to see out my career for as long as I can, as long as the body allows it, and I’m still enjoying it.
“It wasn’t just solely to get away from hurling. I really wanted to travel the country, and it also acted as a great facilitator to allow the body to recover and the mind.”
Chin turns 33 later this year, not yet in the veteran category of Cork’s Patrick Horgan, who turns 37 next month and made his senior debut in 2008, or Kilkenny’s TJ Reid, 38 later this year and who made his senior debut in 2007 – both still proving age is just a number.
Clare’s Tony Kelly also turns 32 later this year, and like Chin, this is further evidence that no player is past their prime just because they are running into their 30s.
“The athlete over the last 15, 20 years, the amount of science that has gone into how to look after yourself, you almost get a head start on it,” says Chin. “As opposed to players from 40 or 50 years ago, I’d imagine. The likes of TJ and Hoggie [Horgan], it’s their experience now that’s kind of coming to the forefront of everything they do, as well as the fact they looked after the body so well.
“At this level, you go with what you know works for you. Or if you need to take a step back every now and then throughout the season, if you need a bit more recovery. And I suppose you do get a little more selfish the older you get. But throughout the year, you just enjoy hurling so much, you want to get the best out of yourself.”
Once Down Under, Chin promptly arranged to meet Matt O’Hanlon, his former co-captain, when Wexford last won the Leinster hurling championship in 2019. O’Hanlon retired at the end of last season, then relocated to Melbourne.
Diarmuid O’Keeffe and Liam Óg McGovern also retired in the off-season, which made for a different Wexford dressingroom when Chin returned just days before the start of the league.
“It did, and I knew it was going to be that. I’d prepared myself while I was away. With Matt, we were co-captain for years, we had a really good, strong relationship. Those are lads I spent all my career in the dressingroom with. That’s sport, the way it goes, and I had to quickly get over that. Because if I am focusing on that, it’s probably not putting my mind in a good place.
“I know that decision for any individual is a tough one, and I know the boys would have been fairly shook up over it themselves, realising they were finishing, and they didn’t need someone like me in their ear. Other leaders need to stand up, and we’ll look to make the most of it for the Leinster championship.”
That campaign starts on Saturday at home to Antrim, who recorded a first championship win over Wexford last year, with former Wexford manager Davy Fitzgerald now in charge.
Wexford were relegated to Division 1B, along with All-Ireland champions Clare, after an inconsistent league campaign – losing to Cork, Tipperary and then Kilkenny by a combined total of 29 points. Chin returned for the wins over Clare and Limerick and the narrow defeat to Galway
With Keith Rossiter in his second year in charge, Wexford have moved on from the Davy Fitz era, who spent five seasons with the county.
“In fairness, we’re opponents now,” says Chin. “And I’d imagine after the game we’d share a phone call or a message, regardless of how the result goes. We’d still have a very good relationship. It will be strange to see him at the opposite end at the weekend, but we’ve just got to go with it.”
- Lee Chin was speaking in Croke Park as an ambassador for hurling sponsors Bord Gáis Energy
