In May 1963, my older brother Sean was born.  In another extract from the forthcoming biography on Ned Power “My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary”, here’s an insight into how hurling matches marked some of the more monumental events in his life.

My grandmother, it must be said, idolised my father.  To her, he was as perfect a son-in-law as you could get:  he was handsome, charming, diligent, hard-working, healthy, he had a reputable steady occupation and fine standing in the community and he wasn’t a drinker.  She readily forgave any of dad’s transgressions and would plead with my mother to do likewise, if and when the occasion called for it.

That evening, Julia had a very anxious wait.  She had her hands full looking after a little toddler and her daughter was in hospital hoping to give birth again.  The hours ticked by.  Ned’s game was at seven, which means it would be over at eight, which means that, failing incident, her son-in-law would be home no later than half past nine or ten o’clock.

As ten o’clock came and went, my grandmother began to feel certain that Dad must have visited the hospital.  The sooner he was back from there, the greater the likelihood was that everything had gone smoothly.  At eleven o’clock, my father’s Ford Anglia pulled up on the street outside.  Granny rushed to the door, opened it and stood there awaiting some news from my father.  He was calmly removing hurleys and gear from the boot.

“Well?” she finally said.  “Is there any news?”

My father looked startled for a moment.

“What?  Oh yes… We got beaten!  And I broke my best hurley off Mackey McKenna.”

“No, no… What about Gretta?  Did you hear any news about Gretta and the baby?”

My father, nonplussed and with complete confidence in a successful birth and in everyone being in good health just said something like:  “I’m sure it’s fine.  Sure, we’ll give the hospital a ring there.”

He rang the hospital and was informed that everything was fine, that he was now the proud father of a baby boy and that both mother and child were doing well.  He looked to my grandmother and said:  “There you are – a baby boy.  They’re both grand.”

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

This photo, scanned from the Tipperary Star newspaper, was taken at the Munster Final in 1963.  In a low-scoring game which was characterised by a dogged if not terribly impressive display by Waterford and a lot of missed opportunities by Tipperary, was significant in that Waterford had beaten their bogeymen of Tipperary and were expected to push on and win the All-Ireland Final in a year in which they had already been crowned League Champions.

Action Shot from Munster Final Vs Tipperary, August 1963

In the picture, you can see my father Ned Power awaiting the dropping ball while his defender tries to stop the in-rushing forward who seems more interested (at least from this angle) in taking the man than the ball.

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

GAA sporting biographies are a regular sight, particularly coming towards the end of the year, when Santa Claus – a renowned sporting fan, particularly fond Waterford hurlers I’m told – is wondering what he should stock in his sack.

There seems to be a lack of content out there when it comes to the Waterford hurling heroes.  I know that a relative of the late John Keane is currently writing a book on the life of the man who is considered by many to have been the greatest Waterford hurler of all time.  He was on the team that won the senior All-Ireland in 1948 and was also the official trainer of the team that won the All-Ireland in 1959.

Apart from that, I have not yet come across any others.  Both that and the one on Ned Power have not yet been published so there is something of a vacuum of information when it comes to Waterford sports stars and books about them.

Perhaps nobody wants to read about them and people want, instead to read about hurling stars of the present, such as Donal Og or Brian Cody or Henry Shefflin.  Or, people want to read about great stars of the past such as Christy Ring, about whom Tim Horgan wrote a good biography.

Given Waterford’s success over the last 10 years (and it has been the longest period of success since the 57-63 era, despite the lack of an All-Ireland crown), there is a growing band of admirers of Waterford hurlers.  Everyone loves a game underdog, which is Waterford has been in the AI championship up to now, and everyone loves a bit of nostalgia.  Many commentators would say that we are in a bit of a golden era of hurling at the moment and that the 1950s and 1960s was another such era.

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

There’s an interesting choice of GAA Books & Biographies on sale this year and/or coming up for release at the end of 2009.

Apart from my own one on my late father Ned Power entitled “My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary”, there are two high-profile publications in the pipeline, namely one by Brian Cody and another from Cork goalkeeper Donal Og Cusack.

Also, if you click on the Hogan Stand website books page (here), you can see the range there at the moment.

Alternatively, there’s the Ned Power one, which you can get a little taste of here or which you can pre-order by adding your name to the list of those interested in buying the book by contacting me at conorpower@ireland.com.

If you ever needed a more dramatic example of just where you can end up in the professional game, take a look at this video. It’s as far removed from the Waterford All-Ireland heroes of the late 1950s and 60s as you can possible get.

Again, because the professional era allows people like Sky to hijack the TV rights to these games and prevent us from watching our own provinces from competing with coughing up some cash to prop up the whole monstrous experiment of overpaid players, you can’t find this in English on YouTube, which is why this one is in French. But it goes through the series of two necessary replacements because of injury, before the Harlequins people decided to re-introduce their star kicker Evans into the match with five minutes to go.

Having used up all their substitutions, however, they went for a blood substitution by getting Tom Williams to pretend he had a blood injury to his mouth. You can see him winking to the sideline staff as he’s taken off. The French commentators in this piece note that the English are better at creating drama than kicking the ball and the grand plan doesn’t work as Evans kicks wide. Poetic justice for a team led by the master cheat whose charge Neil Back was also congratulated for cheating in the Heineken Cup Final in Munster in 2000, when all the world saw him steal the ball from Stringer in the scrum.

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

Justin McCarthy has a proud record as a coach that stretches back to his enforced withdrawal from the Cork squad almost forty years ago. Then, he took on Antrim and guided them to Intermediate success before getting back onto the Cork senior team and winning his only All-Ireland senior medal. Since then, he has continued to coach successfully.

In his inter-county career, he has, in my opinion, been most impressive when dealing with the Waterford senior team. By the time he was finished with them, the Déise had a cohesive team unit made up of individuals with excellent hurling skills and who had confidence in their abilities.

Last Sunday, Limerick were playing a game that was very new to them. One shouldn’t expect much from a season with a new coach, but few would have predicted the routing that they got at the hands of a Tipperary side which, after a shaky start, completely outclassed their opponents, particularly in the all-important skill of hitting the target.

Psychologically, it was very difficult to understand why the Limerick coach had made the choices he made in terms of players’ positions. Perhaps he thought that this would ensure a supply of quality ball being played forward? I don’t know. The effect that it did seem to have was to upset the team and make every one of them wonder just what was expected of them.

Traditionally, Limerick are a team that deal in certainties; of keeping their shape, holding the line and playing within their limits with fire and passion. The mark of Justin McCarthy on the team is that their play is now looser. It’s a style that many individuals on the team have yet to catch up with.

Given another season or two (if he’s given it), I predict that Limerick’s skills level will improve under the precise tutelage of Gormanston graduate McCarthy. In many ways, he’s exactly what Limerick needs and if Limerick are not too impatient, he’ll give it to them. Maybe even if he happens to remain longer than his predicted two-year stint, impressive results at senior level will inspire greater interest and encourage more players into the game at younger levels.

And this is to come to the nub of the matter: Just what can an “imported” coach achieve for a team that has been knocking on doors but is still hungry for success? An imported coach is someone who can bring fresh ideas and a high level of experience and expertise to a county side. With a bit of luck, he can get some success. But what he cannot do is do anything about the fundamentals that can bring about success on any kind of sustained level.

For that, a certain culture has to be engendered over a period of time. You want to win All-Ireland senior finals? Well then, you need to start building those teams ten years beforehand at under-12 level. When was the last time an “imported” coach brought his team to All-Ireland success? In hurling, you have to go back eleven years to pick out a rare exception to the rule when Galway man Michael Bond took over the Offaly senior side mid-season and led them to success against Kilkenny.

In the case of my own home county Waterford, we have arguably benefited from the influence of non-native coaches for over a decade now. While there have been successes, there have been no All-Irelands and I’ll bet that the next time Waterford wins an All-Ireland, it will be with a Waterford coach in charge. Once the altitude of an All-Ireland final or semi-final is reached, you need to have a strong and clear motivation behind your every move on the field. What sort of person are players prepared to fight those extra inches for? Someone from your own county who’s personally known to you; who might have taught you in school, perhaps; with whose cousin you’re best friends? Or someone from a rival county who, for all his expertise, is simply still not your county-man?

Getting back to Sunday’s decider, you’d have to feel for Limerick. It was a humiliating pasting that was similar, on the scoreline at least, to last year’s All-Ireland final. The difference was that Limerick actually kept going all the way through and they did stage what was looking like a remarkable comeback at one point.

That Tipperary managed to find a higher gear after that rally is interesting. It was an impressive display that will have done their confidence a lot of good. How much of it was Tipperary reaching an All-Ireland-winning level and how much of it was just a poorly-organised Limerick is still not easy to ascertain. If they can put in a repeat performance against Kilkenny, however (and I think they will), then my money’s on the Premier County being the new All-Ireland champions.

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

Back in the days when Waterford hurlers were competing in All-Ireland finals on a slightly more regular basis than today, the Ban was well in force.

All GAA players are, first and foremost, sportsmen and it goes against the grain of any sportsman to exclude himself from any particular sport or group of sports.  GAA players couldn’t do much about the ban while it was in force.  Restrictive as it was, if players didn’t abide by it, then they wouldn’t be allowed to play.

It was a bit of a taboo subject amongst players too.  One daren’t discuss ones views on it because it you never knew who was listening.

My father did incur the wrath of the local politburo when he committed the sin of kicking a soccer ball around with 3 others on a public area in Dungarvan in the early 50’s.  They banned him for 6 months for that, even though it wasn’t an official soccer game or anything like it.  Later, in 1963, they banned his Waterford team-mate Tom Cheasty.  His crime was attending a dance which was a fundraiser for a local soccer club.  While he was able to stomach (just about) the fact that he had transgressed a rule and was therefore subject to punishment, what he could not stomach was the fact that other more senior member of the GAA were also in attendance at the same event, yet escaped any form of censure.

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

In another extract from the forthcoming book “My Father: the Hurling Revolutionary” (a very personal biography of the life of GAA star Ned Power), Conor Power talks about the build-up to the All-Ireland hurling final of 1959…

Almost a score

The Waterford News & Star’s report on July 31st looked forward with some relish to the September All-Ireland final and reflected the confident mood in Waterford as well as the choice of opponents:

“Equally certain is the fact that, given the choice of opponents for this years final, Waterford, to a man, would plump for Kilkenny. The disappointment of ’57 is still fresh in the memory of Waterford, and now they have a golden opportunity of reversing the decision of that fateful year. Defeating Kilkenny in the final would add extra lustre to the big gold medal with the harp in the centre.” The front page carries a great photo of my dad – looking his most handsome, I think – shaking the hand of the Mayor of Waterford just after the Munster final against Cork. The mayor is looking very smooth in a fine suit and hat. My dad is obviously saying something to him; it looks like his thanking him for his kind wishes, but the mayor’s eyes are wide and looking straight into the camera lens. I don’t know what kind of person the mayor was, but in this shot he looks the epitome of the opportunist politician that just found a great photo-opportunity.

Meanwhile, the Waterford team continued their preparations for the big final. Training in those days was a very different approach to the semi-professional style of preparation that teams engage in nowadays. Training at an official level consisted of preparing players physically for the match, but had nothing to do with honing their skills. For that, some of the players who were perfectionist in nature took it upon themselves to literally train themselves. Midfielder Philly Grimes was one of them and so was my father and the two would often engage in setting up end-of-match do-or-die scenarios, testing one another on their respective skills…

*           *             *

One of the team’s strengths that was widely recognised at the time was its speed. The official team trainer John Keane would have the players playing “chase the ball”, flicking the ball along the ground just out of a player’s reach so that he’d have to move fast to get the ball. He was also careful to overdo the physical training – again something relatively experimental at the time. But John was an experienced All-Ireland medal winner who knew the importance of not overdoing physical exertion and of keeping one skills sharp.

September 6th came. The day of the final. Most newspapers were predicting a Waterford victory. This was, after all, the team that had so mercilessly despatched the Tipperary team and had overcome Cork. In the Sunday Review that day, the prediction from its hurling correspondent and former Waterford trainer Paul Russel was that the “Powerful Decies Selection Should Take the Cup”. He attended a training session of the team and wrote of his impressions which echo those of Austin Flynn and other members of the team:

“I found them the most relaxed, joyful bunch of lads you could find in any training camp. They were unworried… unruffled… and in the peak of condition. Their sprinting, walking, jogging, trotting, and hurling was a joy to watch – training methods that only the perfect athlete could perform. I pointed all this out to John Keane and he said: ‘Yes, Paul, they are a fine bunch of lads. Believe me, this is our year. We know the Kilkenny lads; we are not underestimating them, but we will play for the full hour – and win.’”

“I agree with him,” adds Pat Fanning in the same report. “Never have I heard a hurling final discussed so much by the players, mentors and trainer. They are just eating, drinking, sleeping this hurling final today.”

In the Sunday Press that day, Éamonn Mongey presciently asks if the match, like the two sides’ first meeting 73 years previously will end in a draw. In what was the first “final” day for what was then the new Hogan Stand, the game did end in a draw. Although Waterford (1-17) scored almost twice as many times as Kilkenny (5-5) did, this time it was Kilkenny who got the vital goals in a year where Waterford were the ones who clocked up a high goal tally. That fact must have been a disappointment and a worry for the Waterford team going into the replay, as well as the fact that the match was only saved by Waterford’s only goal, which was scored in the dying minutes of the game by Séamus Power.

The last moments were so frenetic that there was confusion amongst many players on the team as to who was winning. The scoreboard didn’t show the aggregate score – only the score in goals and points – so the players and spectators had to perform their own mathematics to work out who was winning.

That’s not an easy task when you’re also preoccupied with trying to play in an All-Ireland final. Captain Frankie Walsh went into the dressing room in a dejected mood, thinking that they had lost while his county and club team-mate Séamus Power was convinced that they were All-Ireland champions : “Séamus thought we were a point ahead and I thought we were a point behind. Sure I was going off the field thinking we were beaten by a point again!”

The national dailies were fulsome in their praise of the match the following day. “Thank heavens it was a draw,” wrote John D Hickey in the Irish Independent. “That was my predominant thought at the end of an epic combat at Croke Park yesterday, when, in an All-Ireland senior hurling final that simply beggars description, a game that seems to make all words inadequate, Waterford and Kilkenny ended on level terms in a contest that must rank as a landmark in the history of the G.A.A.”

In the Cork Examiner, an equally breathless report speaks of a “Thrilling Climax to a Rousing Final”. In his “In the Soup” column in the Evening Press, Joe Sherwood waxed lyrical about the drawn final:

“What a rousing grand stand finish there was in the All-Ireland hurling final at Croke Park yesterday…

“The opening half, even though Waterford had asserted their superiority to win a 0-9 to 1-1 interval lead, was waged at top speed with neither side sparing itself. But this was made to look like a jog trot compared with what was to come after the change of ends.

“Then for thirty minutes, fury was let loose. What heart-palpitating stuff it was. Never a moment’s respite for either players or onlookers. It seemed unbelievable that humans could keep going at such a pace. The harder Kilkenny hit to win their way back into the game (which they succeeded in doing), the harder Waterford hit back.” Sherwood surmises that the “aerial game paid off” for Kilkenny in the second half: “One imagines that at half-time they must have had a parley among themselves, and then returned to the fray to play Waterford, not at their own game which was ground hurling, but to swing the ball through the air with mighty goal-mouth pucks. And they soon discovered Waterford’s Achilles heel. So they played on it… They (Waterford defenders) must now know what to expect in the replay on October 4. Whether they have learned their lesson remains to be seen… Wasn’t it a game to last in memory with the greatest ever played in Croke Park? How the boys lasted out the hour at such a pace is indeed a rare and lasting tribute to our young manhood.”

Possibly one of the most impressed neutral observers at the game was one Kenneth Wolstenholme – a BBC commentator who had come over with a camera unit to make a brief documentary on the sport for a British sports programme. “If you took those teams on a world tour to play a game like that you would have hurling played everywhere,” he enthused in the Evening Herald the day after the game. “The amazing speed of the game simply thrilled me… I could not understand how they could control the ball with those pieces of wood. And the wholehearted body contact just had to be seen to be believed. I had expected to be interested in the match, but it was not long in progress before I was a real fan. Most games have their dull moments, but this hurling is ‘go’ all the time!” He singled out Tom Cheasty as the star of the game and went to the dressing room afterwards, where John Keane presented him with a souvenir hurley

Wolstenholme’s prediction of world domination for the Irish national game is an interesting one when, half a century later, the game is shown live around the world.  The Herald’s hurling correspondent echoed the hope of growth in popularity that the game elicited in his report:  “Hurling may not be making headway in many counties, but a few more epic hours like yesterday’s All-Ireland final… could well make the caman game even more popular than Gaelic football.”

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

When the final whistle sounded on Sunday, I was shaking.  Watching it from the surreal surroundings of a virtual hurling desert of a bar in Sligo, I sat down and breathed a heavy sigh and took a deep sip of porter.  I didn’t feel too much disappointment because for the last five minutes, there seemed to be little chance of a late rally that would involve two goals, and we were all conditioned to expect a Kilkenny victory no matter what the circumstances in the final shakedown.

There's always next year

It was only afterwards when I reflected on how close it was that the disappointment and heartbreak that is a Waterford supporter’s lot began to set in.  The reflex save from the Kilkenny goalkeeper a few minutes from time that stopped what would have been the goal of the year from Eoin Kelly, the couple of lapses in concentration that became goals for Kilkenny, the many missed and eminently scoreable opportunities that went wide, the fouling of Dan the Man that might, on another day, have been a penalty.

Davy Fitzgerald deserves praise for bringing his team to a stage which allowed them to compete at the highest level.  Whatever people say about him (and I, for one, have not been a fan of this man since he took over the Waterford team), he has managed to get the team playing a resistant, dogged brand of hurling that has served them well in this year’s campaign.  This doggedness came into play again yesterday but it was matched with some real signs of the team opening up and letting loose their own considerable talents.  Witness the first Waterford goal after four minutes.  It was the kind of move and style that we have all come to associate with Waterford over the last decade – beautiful and deadly simplicity.  It was also exciting because it laid down a marker to show Kilkenny that they do not know what to expect this side to do.

Looking at the previous Deise performances, it seemed to me that the skill and creativity that had been so well nurtured over the previous ten years and which had become a hallmark of the Waterford style, had been coached out of the team.  There was little evidence of a team plan, apart from winning frees for Eoin Kelly to point over and passing the ball to John Mullane.

But the beautiful baby that Davy Fitz had been nurturing these past 11 months was born to the country.  This may seem like over-praise to some.  They did lose again to Kilkenny, after all, but if your team goes down, then it’s a really positive sign for the future if your team goes down to a narrow margin and still fighting a fine fight.

The team with the more accomplished set of skills was Kilkenny – something which made a crucial difference in the end.  I don’t think there’s any need to add to the already large heap of praise that lies at the feet of Henry Shefflin.  Frankly, I’m a little weary of being impressed by his calm skilful displays, but what I couldn’t help but be impressed by was the overall skill levels across the park and across the range of skills that are there.  Compare the well-executed block-downs by a number of Kilkenny players to the feeble efforts of Waterford (and indeed, most other county players).  Kilkenny have, over a number of years, produced a succession of teams possessing quantity and quality of skill that is near perfect.  The players have confidence in possessing those skills and how to use them.  Waterford come close, but fall short in this regard, in my opinion.

As for the referee, I think that Barry Kelly gave a performance that was fair.  While there were a few things for Waterford to complain about, Kilkenny too can have their grievances at some of his decisions.  Overall, he did not give Kilkenny carte blanche to tackle by means of sending a group of players to surround and lightly beat up their opponent and then come away with the ball – something that referees have a tendency to do.

The defeat of this Kilkenny team is not, as some commentators have said, ‘virtually inconceivable’.  Waterford’s display has shown that.  If some tactical improvements were made (such as playing Eoin Kelly outfield where he is every bit as effective as Mr Shefflin), the result could have been very humbling indeed for the regal men in black and amber.  The emperor does have clothes all right and he’s still on his throne, but he’s not wearing a bullet-proof vest.

The Deise men can now hold their heads high again and really look forward with relish to next year’ s championship when they just might become champions.  On Sunday they showed that they’re not a finished force or an ageing side or anything other than a fine hurling county that will continue to produce good teams and one of those good teams will win the All-Ireland.

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

Hurling Skills

July 5, 1996

Hurling’s enduring attraction is a composite of many things: the speed of the game, the frequency of scoring, the manliness of the exchanges, the excitement it generates, the ability to control and use possession profitably which it exhibits.  Above any other of its characteristics it is the 125 (roughly) individual skills of the game which set it apart from all other field games.  It is extremely unlikely that any present day player in the country has even half of them.  No hurler does and it would be virtually impossible to find time to practise them.  Far better to give adequate attention to say, eight or ten skills which must be used in every game and master them.  But even that takes up a big proportion of training time so it is only those hurlers who practise outside of the regular team sessions who achieve a high standard.

What promoted those reflections was the All Ireland Skills competition of Féile na nGael.  It is just possible that some counties (though they would need to be removed from the mainstream of civilisation) don’t know about it even though it has been an integral part of every Feile for 26 years.  Every county in Ireland was contacted will in advance of Feile and issued with all relevant literature.  It seems that 13 counties care little about skills since only 19 counties were represented at the finals.  Can it be possible after all the years of promotional work nationwide and the setting up of coaching structures within all counties that hurling skills have such little or no appeal for the boys in Cavan, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Leitrim, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Monaghan, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary and Tyrone?  I have been in most of these counties at one time or another and know only too well that their hurlers, their young hurlers especially, have as much love of and interest in the game as those of the other nineteen.  In fact there is no county in Ireland, even the weakest, where a handful of skilled performers can’t be found.

I know Patsy Murphy of Dundalk, as fluent a striker of the ball as I’ve seen.  Playing with Louth he could pick off points from a variety of ranges and positions and would shine in any company.  Joe Henry was a brilliant forward with Mayo who showed in a League match in Dungarvan some years ago why he was such a celebrated hurler.  Peter Stevenson of Derry won an All Star award at football before falling in love with hurling and distinguishing himself in the hurling teams of Derry and Ulster.  No, it is an indictment of over 40% of our County Boards or Bord na nOg that lads were denied the chance to compete against their peers in a test of hurling skills.  It was the Board’s responsibility to encourage and promote the primacy of skill and to allow some by the significant honour of representing his county on a national stage, an honour which any young lad would treasure.

Isn’t it incredible that Cork and Tipperary for all their record number of Munster and All Ireland titles in minor, under 21, junior and senior hurling, for all of the generous sponsorship which they enjoy, for all of that huge investment which they have made in coaching and for all of their high profile nationally couldn’t ensure that one boy was in Waterford on one afternoon in June to uphold the honour of his county?  Surely this must constitute a serious dereliction of duty or are they so insensitive to a boy’s love of skills and the enjoyment he derives from exercising it.

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.