Lee Chin admits Davy Fitzgerald’s pitch invasion delivered a boost

"When you look across and see Davy and his passion and just the way he approaches everything... when I looked across and seen that, it re-lit a little spark in me.”

Lee Chin admits Davy Fitzgerald’s pitch invasion delivered a boost

Wexford joint-captain Lee Chin described boss Davy Fitzgerald’s eight-week ban as ‘very harsh’, though he admits to being energised by his manager’s encroachment onto the pitch during the league semi-final defeat to Tipperary, writes Paul Keane .

Fitzgerald has been suspended for engaging two Tipp players on the pitch, with Tipp midfielder Jason Forde also slapped with a proposed two-match ban for a jostling incident with Fitzgerald Chin claimed ‘harmless’.

“Obviously people have been talking about it at home,” Chin said of Fitzgerald’s ban.

“You walk anywhere and people are asking about it but the reaction is a lot of people think it’s very harsh and obviously they’d like to see Davy on the sidelines but unfortunately that’s not going to be the case for the first two Championship games.

“But look, it is what it is, we’ve just got to deal with it and Wexford people will just have to deal with it too.”

Fitzgerald may have angered disciplinary chiefs by stating in interviews after the game he ran onto the field partly to inspire his players, and that it worked.

Chin said he did feel energised by Fitzgerald’s intervention and Wexford went on to give Tipperary a difficult game until the All-Ireland holders pulled clear in the final 10 minutes or so.

“Look, I think we were all frustrated by what happened down in the corner beforehand,” he said. “I think we all know it was probably a free, a free out in that case. I think there was two or three points in it at that stage and it went back to five or six after Noel McGrath got the goal.

“I think with Davy’s incident we were all frustrated but I think he kind of dealt with it for us all in terms of our own frustration.

“It was, in some ways, when you look across and see Davy and his passion and just the way he approaches everything... when I looked across and seen that, it re-lit a little spark in me I suppose not to give up.”

Tipperary are expected to contest Forde’s punishment, with Fitzgerald happy to speak on the player’s behalf.

“I would feel very sorry for the player,” Chin said at the launch of the 2017 John West Féile na nGael and Féile Peile na nÓg tournaments.

“It was an incident that happened that was a bit unfortunate and Jason was just the closest player to it at the time. I do feel sorry for him because if it was me that Jason Forde hit on the field, this wouldn’t have happened.

“Whatever happened in that incident, it was very harmless. I don’t think anything would have happened, there’d have been no cards, probably wouldn’t even have been a warning otherwise. The game would have been just let go.”

This story first appeared in the Irish Examiner.

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