Concerns of safety seem to be dominating a lot of the decision-making by the GAA national council.  The attempted halting of the pitch invasion at the Hurling All-Ireland final and the new rule requiring the wearing of protective head gear by all players (even goalkeepers) were decisions that were taken in the name of improving safety for players.

The debate is going to continue on both issues for a time to come.  From my own slightly cynical point of view, when I hear organisations talking about safety issues, I feel the pervasive presence of an insurance company whispering in the ears of decision-makers.  It’s also linked, perhaps, to the growing presence of the GPA and it represents, perhaps, a marking of lines – a defensive ploy, a laying down of a few sandbags if you like – in anticipation of the bitter battles to come between the GPA and the GAA.

Kilkenny Helmet Police arresting Dan Shanahan for the non-wearing of his helmet during this years AI SF.

But being bright and positive about it, although the measure of forcing senior goalkeepers to wear the sight-restrictive clobber seems quite daft, the whole exercise has already proven itself at lower levels in reducing the rate of serious accidents.  So that’s a good thing to be welcomed.  It remains to be seen what effect it will have on defenders and goalkeepers, however.  I’m betting that next year’s championship could see an even higher aggregate score amongst teams.  Fifty years ago, Waterford were knocking in an average of about six goals per game on their way to their last All-Ireland win.  If they could get ahead of the posse and invent some class of helmet that would allow the goalie to see through it, then the advantage would be with them and we’ll see how many goals they’ll knock in against the likes of Kilkenny then!

“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.

Santa with yet another GAA book in his hand

In the business of hurling books coming up to Christmas, it’s always a feast or a famine: either there are almost no hurling books or GAA books at all, or there are a lot of them.

Last year, there were not many.  The big sports book for Christmas was Ronan O’Gara’s autobiography, which was written with help from Denis Walsh of the Irish subsidiary of British newspaper Sunday Times.

This year, there are many, many GAA books:  Unlimited Heartbreak, which tells the story of Limerick’s frustrating struggles to reach All-Ireland glory through numerous outspoken characters; The l.iam MacCarthy Cup is a colourful reference tome by veteran Sean Og O Ceallachain and Owen McCann; Come What May has generated more column inches than the rest put together, not least for the fact that it’s written by an openly gay GAA star; Cody is a straight-up account that gives some idea as to what makes this highly successful manager function – the achievements of the team are truly spectacular and historic, although I personally still have reservations about referees’ propensity in the past for allowing Kilkenny get away with the tactic of surrounding the opposing player with the ball and lightly beating him up until he coughs up.

Cream of the crop, however, in my humble opinion, would have to be “My Father; a hurling revolutionary“.  In the first place, there has been no biography written about a Waterford GAA star up to now.  Secondly, the life of Ned Power was a very interesting one – a man who embodied all the best principles and characteristics of the GAA and of sportsmanship in general and whose unyielding efforts were carried out in a spirit of good humour and generosity.  Thirdly, it’s written from the perspective of his son – something which gives it all a truthful and fascinating viewpoint that makes it, I think, a book that will be appreciated equally by hurling and non-hurling people.

“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.

The story of the role of Gormanston in the evolution of hurling is one that is not easy to find in hurling books currently available. In the forthcoming “My Father, a Hurling Revolutionary”, this subject is explored and the subject’s important role in this development.

Even though the Gormanston courses were not officially coaching courses (but “training course” under the official nomenclature of the time), coaching is exactly what they were.

Diarmuid Healy of Kilkenny – a man who led neighbouring county Offaly to 2 All-Ireland crowns in the 1980s – is one who sang the praises of the Gormanston camps:

“‘The Gormanston model was way ahead of (the current weekend coaching initiatives). I often ask Croke Park to revisit those days. The just have, in my opinion, Mickey-Mouse ones, weekend ones only. They just touch on it, but that was an in-depth study of the game; you were immersed in it for a week and everything was done in a very thorough way. It was invaluable….

“Anything I learned about hurling came from there. It was all based on the Gormanston model of breaking down the skills, showing players how to perform that skill and getting them to practise and practise them…

In an interview on RTE back in early 2008, Diarmuid also pointed out that “‘hurling and football are two totally different games. The only thing in common is that they’re both run by the GAA. After that, they’re totally different… and we need to set up separate structures in the GAA for hurling and football. There’s no point in the same committee drawing up coaching regulations and coaching practices for both football and hurling.”

“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.

By the time the Gormanston training camps were into their third year,they had become immensely popular, with players from all hurling counties – weak and strong – vying to get on the much-coveted courses.  Here’s what Ned Power himself had to say about Gormanston in an article from the Dungarvan Leader in 1996:

Gormanston 1965; All smiles before a typically competitive practice match

The Gormanston courses started in 1965 and continued into the late seventies when the GAA bureaucrats decided they had outlived their usefulness. I was there for all of them and will never forget them. Each year seemed to surpass the previous year in enjoyment. Gormanston College is a massive Franciscan second level institution in County Meath some 30 miles north of Dublin. The college possesses every possible educational and recreational facility. Besides dormitories with accommodation for over 300, there is ample provision of private rooms, classrooms, television rooms, language laboratory, a large refectory, a magnificent swimming pool and a beautiful chapel where we occasionally responded to the urge to acknowledge God’s munificence to us. The outdoor facilities could hardly be bettered with charming walks through the spacious grounds (we hardly took any notice of them!), several fine playing pitches, a handball alley with covered spectator accommodation, an athletic cinder track to championship standard and a testing nine hole golf course within the confines of the college complex.

Note the reference to “GAA bureaucrats” deciding that the courses had outlived their usefulness.  Opinion is divided on this one. From the point of view of the GAA heads and of many of the organisers (my father excepted), demand for the courses died away to a point where the Gormanston model had become obsolete and new shorter courses were brought to the clubs around the country.  For others I spoke to, including my father, Justin McCarthy and Diarmuid Healy, it was a scandal that they were stopped and many see the falling numbers attending as a result of a lack of enthusiasm of administrators around the country rather than a lack of demand from people willing to improve their knowledge of hurling.

“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.

No sooner have the last hurling balls been pucked than the hurling books begin to fly through the air.

This year is a bumper harvest, no doubt. Cork hurler Donal Og Cusack‘s book is certainly the pick of the crop in terms of generating excitement.  His book is due to feature a number of revelations about his personal life and his views on professionalism in the game that will cause much heated debate in the months to come.

All of this is a far cry from the attitude of players in the 1950s. In those days, players simply played to the best of their abilities and did what they were told.  If they got the opportunity to play for their county, then they humbly accepted and were honoured to do so. Their personal lives were nobody’s business but their own and the idea of taking payment for doing what they loved to do – particularly for their own native county – was simply not within the realm of possibility.

As the organisation has developed over the years, so too have the revenues. Expectations from players have been raised accordingly.  Many would say that those expectations are too high, but it must be remembered that demands on players are not the same as they were 50 years ago.

In the 1959 championship, for example, Waterford came through their provincial games unbeaten. There was no need for any “back door” re-test.  Galway were actually playing in the Munster championship at the time (with very little success), so winning the Munster title put them straight into the final.

Games were a whole 10 minutes shorter and, even with the necessity of a replayed All-Ireland final against Kilkenny, Waterford had a minimum rest-up period between games of 4 weeks.  Going into the the replay against the Cats on October 4th 1959, Waterford were the favourites (God be with the days!), yet one of the chief concerns amongst newspapers at the time was that the Waterford players might suffer from “burn-out” after such a “long campaign”!

“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 Pioneers Ned Power, Fr Tommy Maher & Dessie Ferguson, Gomanstown 1970

It’s strange that more has not been published on the pioneering work that was carried out by a small few in the Gormanston training camps from 1965 until the late 1970s.

These camps were set up at the instigation of the GAA president and they were essentially the first attempts at developing coaching in the organisation.

The only proviso, however, was that the word “coach” or “coaching” was not not to be used under any circumstances. This would be too much of a commercial approach and would not be tolerated by the more traditional elements within the organisation – both players and administrators. Furthermore, there were many GAA members who actually believed that hurlers were born and not made.

This, quite frankly, sounds crazy in today’s context where coaches are employed professionally at club level, often getting a couple of hundred euros per session in a bizarre sort-of grey market.

The men of the Gormanston camps had to use the preferred term “training” to describe the revolutionary work that they did.  In the beginning (after the initial footballing camp), there were three: Fr Tommy Maher of Kilkenny, Donie Nealon of Tipperary and Dessie Ferguson of Dublin.  They were joined in the second year by two more including my father Ned Power.

“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.

Heroes of the Past

After a highly entertaining County Final yesterday, there was a special event organised by the Waterford County Board in honour of the 1959 All-Ireland winning senior team.

As it was the 50th anniversary of that last AI crown, there were VIP invitations to all the surviving team members and/or partners or representatives.  In addition, there were also the captains of the county-winning teams from the last 25 years.  These included such luminaries as Fergal Hartley (who was actually still in action for Ballygunner on the day), Ken McGrath and, representing Tallow’s famous 2-in-a-row from ’84 and ’85, Kieran Ryan and Mick Beecher respectively.

I was fortunate enough to be there along with my mother and it was great to meet some of the Waterford legends whom I had not met before, as well as some of the sons-of and daughters-of.  Strangely enough, this was the first time that I had met people “like me”, so it felt rather like a strange and very nice sort-of support group where there were conversations about what it was like being “sons-of” and “daughters-of”, hurling books and Waterford Crystal trophies – soon to be pure collectors’ items.

“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.

The day of the big final is fast approaching. Lismore, who have had their share of success in this competition over the last few decades, are up against another illustrious hurling club in the form of  Ballygunner.

There will be no shortage of inter-county stars on display. Dan Shanahan and his younger brother Maurice (who

Maurice Shanahan with the ball for Lismore

is in flying form this weather, by all accounts) should be playing for Lismore, while for those who miss watching Paul O’Flynn drive the likes of Cork and Kilkenny mad by racking up the points for Waterford, it will be an opportunity to see how he fares out with Ballygunner, who beat a much-fancied Mount Sion team on their way to the final.

As a marker of the 50th anniversary of the last Waterford senior All-Ireland win, there is to be a special reception for survivors or representatives. The 1959 final took place exactly 50 years and 1 week ago from the date of this final. Let’s hope that the current team make another small step and claim the cup in 2010.

“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.

It’s always heartening to see someone still living and working to the best of their ability in their eighties.  This is the case with Sean Og O Ceallachain who is the co-author (along with Owen McCann) of a book that has just been launched entitled “The Liam MacCarthy Cup”.

It’s basically a reference hurling book that charts the games that were played out since 1923 where the MacCarthy Cup was the prize.  Among the finals highlighted are the Thunder and Lightning final of 1939 – played in a deluge while a real war erupted elsewhere in Europe – and the stunning smash-and-grab win by Offaly in 1994, when they scored 2-5 in the last 6 minutes to make the most unlikely of comebacks.

Amongst the photographs, there is one of my father lining out for Waterford in the 1959 All-Ireland; the last time a hurling final was replayed and which was played (precisely to the day and date last Sunday) 50 years ago in an October that was also unseasonably warm.

Sean & Owen describe this final as a “sporting game” where a composed display from Waterford  saw the Noreside neighbours (who were also bogeymen back then) off.  The authors also refer to both sets of players congratulating one another whole-heartedly at the end.

In Waterford, the traditional view of Kilkenny is that of a side that has always relied more on its skill than its brawn – the opposite to what the traditional view of the Tipp sides of that era in particular – at least, that’s the distinct impression I get from talking to some of those men.

In any case, it’s a hurling book worth checking out – a well-written series of accounts of the finals that serve as a reminder of so many great matches.

“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.

I suppose I shouldn’t feel too upset.  After all, almost every year, Munster receives a hiding from Leinster in the Celtic League and we might as well get it over and done with now before the matches become too crucial.  Last season, for example, we dished out a hiding to them both home and away. We were smiling at the time, but it was only delaying the inevitable lashback which was bound to be even more painful than normal and, of course, it came just when Munster were looking like a shoo-in for their third European crown.

I didn’ t watch the match.  I don’t subscribe  to any of the sports-events hijack stations, Irish or foreign. I don’t agree with that crooked racket any more than the one that allows one company to hijack the right to make a replica jersey for 2c in China and then sell it on to the hapless fan for €70, all the while forcing him/her to advertise their product for free like a sandwich-board person.  Besides, it gives me a good excuse to go down to the pub.

So, roll on the return match in Thomond next April and let’s hope that the opportunity will be there for some more revenge in the European Cup.

“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.