Waterford's golden generation huge favourites for U21 All-Ireland

They’ll enter Thurles on Saturday as unbackable favourites because of what Austin Gleeson did to Kilkenny in last month’s drawn All-Ireland semi-final, because of what he did in the replay six days later, because of Conor Gleeson’s assuredness when thrown in for his second afternoon of championship fare in the All-Ireland quarter-final win over Wexford and because Patrick Curran and Shane Bennett, between them, clipped 3-73 in the national league.

Seán Power wasn’t the least bit surprised by the exploits of his U21 players at senior level this year. He’s known since the summer of 2009 that this was a pretty special bunch.

The Waterford U21 manager was first introduced to Austin Gleeson, Tom Devine, Patrick Curran and the Bennett brothers from Ballysaggart, Stephen and Shane, at development squad level when the latter quintet were 12 and 13-year-olds.