by Daragh Ó Conchúir

These are exciting times for Kilkenny camogie. The seniors introduced some fresh blood and just missed out on qualification for Centra League Division 1A final on score difference (three points) to subsequent winners and All-Ireland champions, Galway.

Away from the shop window, Trojan endeavour is generating considerable dividend. This weekend illustrates the latest yield, with the county’s U16s in the replayed Eir All-Ireland A final against Galway (5pm), as the second leg of a double-header at Grant Heating St Brendan’s Park in Birr, at which the U23A semi-final between the same counties kicks off proceedings (3pm).

This arrives a fortnight after the Kilkenny minors made it back-to-back All-Irelands, while the Loreto nursery in the Marble City secured a senior/junior double in All-Ireland A schools’ competition – the senior triumph marking a remarkable four-in-a-row.

Some seasoned observers reckon there hasn’t been as much giddiness about the calibre of young Stripey players emanating from the system since the group that won four All-Ireland U16 crowns on the trot from 2005-2008 and replicated that at minor level, from 2006-2009.

Katie Power garnered five All-Ireland medals from that period – two U16s and three minors. The Piltown star would go on to add three senior All-Irelands to her medal haul and rack up a tally of six Leagues and 11 Leinster Championships. There was an All-Ireland intermediate club championship into the bargain in 2015 and four All-Stars.

She was Kilkenny captain last year but has taken a step back this season to rehab the latest of a catalogue of injuries that have plagued her in recent years – a very badly broken finger and broken kneecap among them – but has not called time on her career yet. She will know when the time comes around for pre-season training if the hunger is still there.

Power is as excited as anyone about what is happening for Kilkenny now. But she knows the pitfalls that come with it. The pressure. The expectation - internal and external. All while making a considerable step up in grade. It took until 2016 for all her group’s embryonic success to translate to a senior All-Ireland. There were so many setbacks along the way. Three All-Ireland final losses prior to the breakthrough and three final losses in a row directly after, before they won two of the next three championships to finally feel like they had delivered on their potential.

So while not wanting to rain on anyone’s parade, she is preaching caution.

“The underage in Kilkenny is on a real upward curve the last couple of years and it’s so exciting to see,” says Power. “I think the schools’ camogie has obviously translated to the inter-county scene. You have the Loreto battling it out every year and the standards they have set across the board has been unreal. Presentation Kilkenny aren’t too far behind them and I do think that has driven the standards higher in both schools.

“Then where I went to school myself (Scoil Mhuire Greenhill in Carrick-on-Suir), won the All-Ireland Colleges’ B All-Ireland. It was great to see that. The majority of that team was Kilkenny-based so it was brilliant.

“The U16s game last weekend was an unbelievable standard from both sides. And I know Galway might feel they left the lead build up too much against them and the Kilkenny girls will be disappointed to lose that lead but it was a crazy good game at that age. Then you had Kilkenny winning the two-in-a-row at minor.

“It’s super exciting to see such a good crop of players coming through and the last crop of players that came through like that was back in our time, without making ourselves sound super old! It’s mad to think it was so long ago. But obviously all the positivity that comes with winning those All-Irelands, people need to remember they are young and there is a long way to go. When we won those All-Irelands – for me it was five in four years - it was so exciting and at the time, at adult level, Kilkenny weren’t going great, but it took us 10 years to translate that to a senior All-Ireland win.

“We have great underage players coming through but we need to keep the experience within the panel to bring them through. It’s a massive step from being a 16-year-old girl to playing in a senior game. That’s where I think the U23 has been brilliant. It’s such a good stepping stone from the underage to come up to adult level., for confidence, physicality, the players’ heads in terms of what they’re letting themselves in for in terms of the professionalism of today’s game.

“Our U23s are in an All-Ireland semi-final so it’s so good to see these teams coming to the fore and there’s no reason it can’t come through over the next few years with that mix of the different ages. It’s exciting times down here for sure. You’d be looking at it with a smile on your face. They’re so talented and hopefully they can bring that to the fore at senior level.”

It has been a different year from what Power has been accustomed to, given her entire adulthood, and indeed her adolescence, has been committed to the Black and Amber. But after setting up a business and then, picking up a serious left foot injury with the club last September that took months to diagnose, she didn’t want “to wreck myself for the whole year,” so she opted for discretion.

After an initial prognosis of chronic plantar fasciitis, the enduring and indeed worsening pain in her foot prompted more scans that revealed a tear in the plantar fascia. After some injections, the progress feels slow but she has yet to even put on a pair of football boots.

That isn’t to say she has been idle. You do know Katie Power, right?

“I wanted to keep myself busy and train for something a little bit different, when I knew I wasn’t going back playing. So I signed up for a few Hyroxes. But I was just doing all off-feet stuff, all off-feet conditioning, all aerobic stuff. You build up a savage bank by doing that but obviously nothing really replaces the running. I was confident enough you’d get through the Hyrox alright with the bank of aerobic stuff I had done, but luckily, three or four weeks before, I got a little bit of running in before we went to Malaga, once a week in runners, minimal stuff, but I felt good in the runners.

“It was a good challenge. Sure we always like a bit of hardship!”

She took part in the women’s pairs in the Spanish city three weeks ago with Sophie Holden, her young Piltown clubmate and a Kilkenny teammate last year.

“It was a good buzz. It was kind of hellish doing it but it was good after. And I needed something for the head, to be training for something different, to keep busy.”

In the midst of all this, Power opened her own gym in Kilkenny, ATRIX Fitness Company, in partnership with former Kilkenny hurler Conor Fogarty and Gary Delaney.

“That was a big factor in my decision not to go back this year, along with the injury. The last couple of years I’ve gotten great work opportunities but I had to decline them because of camogie. You don’t have the time to give to the work opportunities. Being self-employed, without sounding in any way money-hungry, you’re down serious money every week. So that was a big thing, opening up the new place, you mightn’t be given the opportunities being offered much longer.”

She is keeping her eye on the Cats was encouraged by the League. Along with what is developing underage, there is a lot to be positive about. But whether she will be available next year – she will be 36 in November - remains an unknown. Even to her.

“I’d love to tell you an answer on if I am ready to give up, or I’m not. I don’t know. But when I was speaking to Jimmy (Meagher, Kilkenny coach), I said, ‘I’m not closing the door.’ I don’t know. I wish I knew the answer, because maybe I’m only dragging it out.

“It is a bit strange in a way, but I am grateful that I’ve been able to keep myself busy. If you dwell on it too much, there’s no point in that either. You have to kind of enjoy the things that you might not have been able to enjoy when you were playing. I went to Nashville around Paddy’s weekend with my family. I got to do the Hyrox with my friends. Even small things like the weekend when the weather is unreal, if you’re having a little barbecue at home, you’re not worried about training tomorrow.

“I’m not really a big drinker. I don’t go out much anyway. So it’s not that side of things I missed, but just have that little bit of flexibility now. When you’re playing inter-county, your life is pretty rigid, seven days a week.”

Katie Power has done her fair share and on the evidence of this weekend and recent weeks, the production line is readying a crew with many of the traits to step up. Whether Power will be back to help their transition if there is a mirror of her in that group, Kilkenny will well and truly have struck gold.

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