In January 2016, eight-time All-Ireland winner Richie Power retired from inter-county hurling with Kilkenny. After six knee surgeries - the first aged just sixteen - he told Off the Ball that he would probably have to re-learn how to walk and said he was "clutching at straws to get back to the club (Carrickshock)".
In November, Power came off the bench to play the second half of his club's Kilkenny Intermediate Hurling Championship final, helping Carrickshock to victory after months of hard work to try and rehabilitate his knee. The club then made it all the way to the All-Ireland Intermediate Hurling Championship final at Croke Park on Saturday.
And on Saturday, just over a year after thinking he might "never run again", a year after thinking his hurling career could be over, Power scored 0-6 and won man-of-the-match as Carrickshock beat Galway side Ahascragh-Fohenagh by 2-15 to 0-6 to win the final at Headquarters. Knee heavily bandaged, Power completed his amazing comeback with a leader's performance.
Power said after the Kilkenny club championship win that it was "better than any All Ireland". Apart from, you'd imagine, a club All-Ireland. This time last year, could Power ever have envisaged such a triumph?
A great story.
