It’s safe to say that Wexford don’t handle the favourites tag very well…
Although heading into the game as 8/15 favourites, Wexford didn’t emerge with the win in Parnell Park. It was expected to be a close-encounter and that’s exactly what it was, with the game ending on a score-line of 3-26 to 4-19 in favour of the Dubs.
Here, we’ll look through some of the major talking points from the game.
A game for the neutral:
Wexford are box-office! From a Wexford perspective, it was nail-biting stuff – but for a neutral, it would have been an excellent game to watch. There was drama, excellent scores, wrongly-awarded goal decisions, unbelievable moments and scores galore. Two evenly-matched teams were going up against one another and from a neutral’s perspective – during a time when hurling and the Leinster SHC seems to get more and more criticism – it was an excellent advertisement for the Leinster hurling. Between the two sides, 52 scores were hit overall in a seven-goal thriller.
Chin’s block:
Wexford’s captain Lee Chin had another monstrous game. The Faythe Harriers man was everywhere. Like always, he was a menace from Wexford’s puck-outs. One of the moments of the match, however, came in his own full-back line when he raced after a Dublin attacker without his hurl. In George O’Connor and Paudie Maher style, he managed to block the ball from going over the bar with his two hands.
That penalty decision:
An article cannot be written about the talking points without mentioning the referee’s decision to wrongly award a goal. Wexford were winning by three points on a score-line of 3-14 to 0-20 when the referee, Michael Kennedy, awarded a penalty. Mark Fanning saved the Dublin penalty and the ball was directly on the line. He ran out of defence with the ball and the Wexford crowd erupted. But after discussing with his umpires, the referee decided to award the goal. While it wasn’t the game-winner, it was a huge turning point in the game and killed Wexford’s momentum.
Drama in Dublin v Wexford. The penalty was given but the sliotar never crossed the line 😮 pic.twitter.com/dTZpgIYSHu
— Craic Of The Ash (@CraicOfTheAsh) April 26, 2025
Dublin’s high-ball:
When trying to pinpoint one thing that went wrong, one would have to look at our approach to dealing with the high-ball. For most of the game, it was route one for Dublin. They targeted our small full-back line with high-ball into their big players. Alarm bells were ringing from the start of the game – but Wexford struggled to deal with this throughout the match. Their big full-forward – St Vincent’s clubman John Hetherton finished with a personal tally of 2-03 from play, while Sean Currie proved to be a menace too, scoring 1-11.
While some Wexford fans may pinpoint the ‘wrongly awarded goal’ as the biggest turning factor, we cannot expect to concede three goals in the space of five minutes either. Rapparees full-back, Liam Ryan, made his return to the delight of Wexford hurling supporters; but it was left all too late at that stage with just 13 minutes remaining on the clock – exactly one minute after Hetherton banged in two goals from play.
Moving on to Galway:
One positive is the fact that Wexford won’t have too much time to dwell on their loss to Dublin. Although they will be hurt, their attention must swiftly turn to their next clash. Their next game in the Leinster Senior hurling championship is against Galway in two week’s time. Both Wexford and Galway will need a win in this one – but Galway will enter the clash as strong favourites. Galway lost out to Kilkenny in the opening round but easily dismantled Offaly in Tullamore over the weekend. With Wexford’s loss to Dublin, there is added importance on this game now for the Yellowbellies.
Getting to a Leinster final is still not out of the question if Wexford can manage to come away with a win against the Tribesmen. Last year in the Leinster hurling championship, Wexford defeated Galway by eight points in Wexford Park – and even though a win in Salthill is never easy, it’s not impossible either. Their next clash will take place on Saturday May 10th.
Jason Redmond
From Gorey, Jason is the owner of Wexford Weekly. He is also a post-primary English and History teacher.
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