There is a very fine line between where Lee Chin finds himself with Wexford and where he'd like to get to with Wexford.
And it's one of the things that keeps bringing the 33-year-old back, year after year, the thought that something very special could be just within the team's reach.
Chin could very easily be discussing, for example, how Wexford were promoted to the top flight of the National League this spring, instead of acknowledging the reality that they just missed out.
Exactly how close a call was it? It came down to a single point in the end. Had they beaten Dublin at Croke Park in February, instead of drawing with them, they'd have gone up to Division 1A at the expense of the Dubs.
Wexford led by two points with 70 minutes on the clock that evening too. In the 75th minute, they were still leading. Then Chris Crummey popped up for Dublin to nail the equaliser. Wexford played other games, of course, but you could distil it all down to that evening in reality. Another of those 'what if' or 'if only' moments.
"To be honest, that sounds like our storyline every year really," said Chin, who was speaking at an event to mark Bord Gáis Energy's continued sponsorship of the All-Ireland SHC.
"There's a lot of years where we've had games that we felt we should have won, or where you might have messed up in one game where you probably should have gotten over the line."
Tomorrow evening's opening group game in the Leinster SHC, against Kildare, has the potential to fall into that same near miss category for Wexford. They hammered the Lilywhites in the league but the Joe McDonagh Cup holders have displayed enough quality across the past 12 months to suggest they can spring a surprise, particularly at home in Newbridge.
It's not a dissimilar tie and buildup to two years ago, when Wexford travelled up to Corrigan Park in Belfast to play Antrim. And lost. The following weekend, Wexford beat Galway by eight points. Pure Wexford.
"It was my first time being beaten against Antrim in the Championship," said Chin. "It's the first time I've beaten Galway in the Championship as well. You're thinking, 'God, if you'd just gotten a result against Antrim'.
"I suppose you look back and reflect on some of the years and you're thinking, 'God, it just seems to be always one game that lets us down somewhere'. Other years, it's Kilkenny, or a Galway game. But just that year (2024), you beat Galway and you end up being beaten, I suppose, by a team that you would have gotten a result against over the years.
"It's moments like that that have you scratching your head. You would obviously be thinking of games like that, where if you'd gotten over the line there, you potentially could have ended up back in Leinster finals."
The caricature of Wexford at their very best, a la 2019, is a group of hurlers playing with abandon, with character. Living on their emotions. But that's not necessarily what's letting them down now.
"You can't rely on that emotion piece," said Chin. "You need it, and you try to tap into it, 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 but more often than not, you will. I think those are the things that you've got to fall back on in terms of going after those aspects of the game, and 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 we probably are a bit inconsistent in, at times, over the years."
Chin, a late starter this year who only returned to the Wexford line-up for that Dublin game midway through the campaign, was one of 30 players to feature in the campaign.
Simon Roche, an Under-20 last year, stepped up impressively, starting all six of their Division 1B games and returning a healthy 1-51. Chin is energised by what he sees when he looks around generally in the Wexford dressing-room.
"I think some of the new faces that are going to be seen in this year's Championship for Wexford are going to be a new calibre of player that's going to be involved," said Chin. "I'm excited to see what they're going to bring to the Championship.
"Obviously 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.
"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.
"We want to focus on getting off to a good start in the Championship. We've got Kildare 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."
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