"Kerry's worst, " he says.

Almost 50 years have slipped by since Waterford took the slingshot to Kerry but the little tales that rose from that triumph still linger. "It's part of folklore around here, " says Power, the great Deise hurler who was also on the Waterford football team that slayed the giant in '57.

It took 24 hours and written confirmation for the people of Waterford to finally accept their county had conquered Kerry. "Nobody gave us a chance going into that game", says Billy Kirwin, wing forward for Waterford and Munster. "And nobody believed it when we beat them", adds Power.

History was stacked against them. At the time, they had recorded 19 wins in the Munster championship while in contrast, Kerry were aiming to collect their 19th All Ireland title that year. The Kerry team of '57 had won the Sam Maguire on two occasions in a four-year spell.

Those victories came in 1953 against Armagh and 1955 against a storied Dublin side.

They reached a third All Ireland final, in 1954, which they lost to Meath. A fortnight before that championship outing against Waterford, Kerry were in Croke Park battling against Galway, then All Ireland champions, for a league title that Kerry would eventually lose. Travelling to Waterford, they had experience and form and, of course, they had confidence.

The Waterford footballers, meanwhile, were ticking along in a county and city with more regard for another sport. The Waterford hurlers were on the cusp of greatness; they went on to reach the All Ireland final of '57 and made the breakthrough two years later.

Anticipation was high and all eyes were on the small ball.

"For us", says Kirwin, "it was a matter of 'get your boots and togs and off you go to the game'. There wasn't much preparation for the footballers. Hurling got the attention."

If the game was billed as David versus Goliath in Waterford's Sports Field, then nobody could have accused those early marketeers of exaggeration. "It was a beautiful summer's day, a bank holiday if I remember rightly. The train was still running from Waterford to Tramore at that stage and it was packed, " says Power.

"There were far more people heading out to the beach to get sunburned than what there was at the game. And before it started I even said, 'God, we'd nearly be better off going out to Tramore rather than meeting Kerry'. I thought they'd make a show of us."

Billy Kirwin remained optimistic, though. "I had played against Kerry in Killarney a few years earlier and we should have beaten them that time as well. Taken individually Waterford had a good team and I knew we would give them a game. I told the lads before the throw-in that we had a chance."

For one reason or another, a number of influential Kerrymen failed to make the journey. Sean Murphy was taking medical exams. A row over the captaincy resulted in goalkeeper Marcus O'Neill staying at home. Tom Moriarty and Mick Murphy were unable to travel. Mixie Palmer had left the Kerry fold and was living in Waterford;

he went on to represent his new county in the subsequent Munster final. Years later he retold the story of the night before the Waterford-Kerry clash. It ended with Palmer showing some of his old colleagues around the watering establishments of the city.

Not all of the Kerry players had stayed in Waterford the night before the game, though. The South Kerry contingent, minus Marcus O'Neill, drove to Waterford early on Sunday. In the car were Ned Fitzgerald, Jerome O'Shea and the fresh faces of Mick O'Connell and Mick O'Dwyer.

"I suppose we would have been confident going up that morning, " says O'Shea, named as one of football's greats by the GAA scribe John D Hickey. "The first round of the Munster championship wasn't taken very seriously but we knew Waterford had strong, tough men.

We expected to win but we knew we'd have to earn it."

With so many absentees and a loose attitude to the game, Kerry only managed to muster 15 players. Tim Barrett, just out of minor, was drafted into goal to replace O'Neill and his brother John, a Kerryman reporter sent to cover the game, was deployed as the 16th man.

"We might have been without a few players but we had a strong team all the same and we can't make any excuses, " continues O'Shea. "It turned out to be a huge shock for us but Waterford played well and you could see their hunger. I have a clear memory of knowing that we were in trouble with just 10 minutes gone."

Talk of an upset was spreading across Waterford.

At half-time the gates to the Sports Field were thrown open in the usual manner but instead of allowing some early leavers the opportunity to depart, more and more people were descending on the ground. "The area around the pitch was built up back then with a lot of houses, and the people living there would have heard the racket coming from the crowd at the game, " recalls Gerry McCarthy, Waterford's goalkeeper. "The numbers began to swell for the second half and we ended up with two or three times more people at the Sports Field for the end of the game than what was there at the start."

The game progressed and Waterford confidence was increasing. The winning point came from the boot of Tom Cunningham with a move which has reached the level of fable in Waterford's football pockets: he collected the ball 60 yards from the Kerry goal, shrugged off a number of challenges and with a sweet left foot sent the ball sailing over the crossbar.

"We were given the night off so we finally got to go out to Tramore, " says Seamus Power. "And even at that stage the fellows around the place didn't believe we had won. We heard a story later on that one of the Kerry players had forgotten his boots and they had sent Tadgh Crowley, the secretary, to find a spare pair of boots in the city. It went to show Kerry's attitude to the game but still, the result caused a sensation."

A few weeks later Waterford were due to meet Cork in the Munster final. "We wanted to bring down a trainer from Dublin to help us for the final but the county board wouldn't hear of it, " says Billy Kirwin. "We lost to Cork but if we were trained properly we could have won a lot more.

Waterford were up against it then. If we beat Kerry in one game we'd have to beat Cork in the next. Cork and Kerry never met in the first round and that wasn't right. We could never get the experience we needed to continue improving and nobody seemed interested in changing the system."

While Waterford had a Munster final on the horizon, Kerry were facing into a bleak summer and a winter to follow and talk was scarce in the car edging towards South Kerry. "We didn't say much, " says O'Shea. "But there was one question we were always asked when we got home after losing: 'What happened ye?' We were trying to prepare some answers for the inevitable inquisition and you know, by the time we reached Caherciveen we still hadn't come to any conclusions. We were just beaten by a better team on the day."

It's unlikely if such a retort would have satisfied the waiting congregation in Kerry.

MUNSTER SFC QUARTER-FINAL PREVIEW KERRY v WATERFORD Fitzgerald Stadium, 3.30 Referee P McGovern (Galway) It's pushing 20 years since Waterford recorded their last championship victory, 1988 to be exact, and in the same period Kerry have notched up more wins than any other county. So it's a case of best against worst at Fitzgerald Stadium today. The question is, what can both teams get out of the game and the answer, really, is very little.

If Waterford can avoid this one turning into a Kerry rout, they'll do well. They have a tendency to leak goals and they're facing a Kerry forward line still fighting for a couple of places. A similar situation arose in Miltown Malbay a while back and we know how that one turned out.

Jack O'Connor is persisting with Fitzmaurice at centreforward, a move that worked well over the course of the league . . .

with the obvious exception of the final against Galway. One wonders if the fast fields of summer will suit the experiment, though.

Eoin Brosnan (right) returns on the wing and if he continues in the same vein as he finished that Galway encounter, his will be one of the first names on the team sheet for the remainder of the campaign.

The back six stays the same - positional switches aside - but with Michael McCarthy on the mend, none of those selected today will take things for granted.

It's a pity Waterford have to start with this one. Having beaten Cavan on the road in their last league outing, the opportunity to build on that in Munster would have been just reward.

Ger Power is back in the first 15, having gone through the league with the Waterford hurlers, and there are debuts for Gary Hurney and Jason Ryan, who showed well in that shock against Cavan. Today, both face a baptism of fire in Killarney.

Verdict Kerry KERRY D Murphy, A O'Mahony, M O Se, T O'Sullivan, T O Se, S Moynihan, M Lyons, D O Se, K Donaghy, P Galvin, E Fitzmaurice, E Brosnan, C Cooper, D O'Sullivan, B Sheehan WATERFORD T Wall, E Walsh, J Phelan, S Briggs, B Wall, E Rockett, P Ogle, A Ahearne, M Ahern, A Hubbard, K Power, G Power, S Cunningham, G Hurney, J Ryan