The forthcoming biography on the life of Ned Power is one of the very few, if not the only biography of a Waterford GAA star.  Apart from book on the late John Keane, there are few efforts at getting down on paper the stories of Waterford’s hurling legends.

Ned Power in Goals in Football

Perhaps it’s the unfortunate lack of success that, relative to certain counties, Waterford have been unfortunate to experience.  Our neighbours Kilkenny have had outstanding success in recent years, culminating in a fourth successive AI title yesterday.

I’s not easy to look on and see one’s neighbours succeeding where we fail to get one title in 50 years, but the Cats are successful not because they’re lucky or because they have a system that their county structure has worked hard to create over the years.

There’s no reason why Waterford can’t do the same.  It’s a hurling county, after all, with very little football getting in the way of such a programme.  What it would require is a certain level of cooperation.  In the past, that hasn’t been there.  The great gains made in the 1957-63 period seemed to dissipate into thin air quickly afterwards and it seems incredible, even now, that it took a full thirty-nine years before the next Munster title was achieved.

“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.