Kilkenny camogie captain Katie Power has been advised to step away from the county scene for 2026, but the three-time All-Ireland winner is not ruling out returning to play for the Cats in the future.
The 34-year-old continues to be curtailed by knee and foot issues, with medical advice recommending she take a break for the season ahead to try remedy those injury problems.
Power suffered a broken kneecap in 2020 and that has been a source of subsequent persistent issues.
“It’s obviously a big link to that, I have early arthritis in my knees and I actually have a bad foot issue since the start of September,” she says.
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“We’re finished playing with club around eight weeks now and it’s probably getting no better. So, I just have two issues there that don’t really seem to be clearing up at all. I suppose if I gave them a couple of months, I might be able to see if we could go back at it in 2027.
“But at the moment, it looks very unlikely that I’ll be able to continue in 2026 with Kilkenny anyway. The girls are back training but I’m not with the group. I just got a bit of medical advice over the last couple of weeks in terms of possibly taking the year out and see if I can come back in 2027.
“I’m trying not to think about it too much because all I want to do is play camogie; playing camogie with Kilkenny is a huge part of my life. But if that needs to be done, it needs to be done. But I won’t be ruling myself out for [the] long-term.”
Power made her senior debut in 2008 and is one of the longest serving intercounty players in the country across all codes.
The four-time All Star has had to play through the pain barrier for several seasons. She suffered a bad hand injury at the start of 2020, which required two surgeries. Then, when returning to full fitness, she damaged her kneecap.
“I think it was around September, we were just in training one day and my kneecap broke. That was my season over and realistically, the season after that was a fair struggle too.
“I probably didn’t regain fitness really until 2022. It was a wicked struggle to get back to where I wanted to be, it was a hard-going 18 months.”
The knee issue has continued to curtail her over the last five years. At one stage, an inserted screw even broke.
“I’ve had a couple of surgeries on that knee and it’s been through the wringer now. You’d be looking at the scars and maybe in 10 years you’ll be saying, ‘Jeez, why did we put ourselves through that?’.
“I know people outside of the GAA would definitely be asking us that. But sure, it’s for the love of what we do and once you’re able, it’s grand to stay going.”
She hurt the knee again in the Leinster club final with Piltown in November, 2024, and the possibility of further surgery was on the horizon. But that would have sidelined her for several months in a season she was to captain Kilkenny.
“That was a big incentive obviously, for myself, my family and my club because it was a huge honour to captain Kilkenny – to be the first person from our club to captain any Kilkenny team.
“It’ll be something that I will look back on with fond memories, even though the year wasn’t as successful as you’d like. That was definitely one of the biggest highlights of my Kilkenny career, bar the All-Irelands, getting to lead out the team for 2025.”
Power was also central to a landmark moment in the history of camogie this season when she led the skorts protest at the coin toss ahead of the Kilkenny-Dublin Leinster semi-final in March.
It was the spark for a controversy that ultimately ended with players winning the right to choose wearing either shorts or skorts.
“I suppose on reflection, it was a success story for camogie in general,” says Power. “Maybe on my own part, I was a little bit naive because those couple of weeks after were absolutely chaos.
“But definitely on reflection, for the whole of camogie it’s been only a success story. We’ve changed the landscape of camogie for younger girls coming up and I suppose that’s one of the main reasons that we did it.”
– Katie Power was speaking at the AIB Goal Mile media day.
