Waterford's re-emergence as a hurling force to be reckoned with has been one of the stories of 2015 - but tomorrow Derek McGrath and his young players face the biggest challenge of all.

You have to go as far back as the 1959 All-Ireland final for the last time the Deise got the better of the Cats in championship action but Brian Cody, taking nothing for granted as usual, was full of praise for their neighbours in the build-up to the penultimate stage clash.

"Waterford are a team who have huge confidence in themselves and huge pace," he said this week.

"They have a really strong work-rate and while they have a young team they have great experience in the likes of Michael 'Brick' Walsh, Kevin Moran and Noel Connors, they're getting on with the job and they're doing very well."

Midfielder Michael Fennelly has been drafted into the Kilkenny starting 15 after missing the 1-25 to 2-15 Leinster final win over Galway due to illness.

John Power drops to the bench while Clara's Shane Prendergast gets the nod to replace the experienced Jackie Tyrell - who has suffered a stress fracture of the foot - at left corner-back.

Elsewhere, the attacking dynamic duo, Richie Hogan and TJ Reid, have been passed fit to play despite injury concerns. Richie Power is definitely out.

Waterford manager McGrath is able to name an unchanged side after  experienced defender Noel Connors passed a fitness test.

The former All-Star was forced off the field with a dead leg in the first-half of the 2-21 to 1-19 quarter-final victory over Dublin two weeks ago.

McGrath doesn't subscribe to the theory that his young side could be overawed by "the Croke Park experience".

"If we lose or are comprehensively beaten or we win, it won't be anything to do with the pitch. It won't have anything to do with Croke Park or the aura that surrounds it.

"You can go the classic way that people often go when a team has been beaten in Croke Park and they say 'ah sure, they were looking up and around during the parade and they came out and their touch was poor in the warm-up and blah, blah, blah and they weren't able to cope with the Croke Park experience' or you can just go up there and embrace the whole thing and just go along with it."

Verdict - Kilkenny.

Kilkenny team: Eoin Murphy; Paul Murphy, Joey Holden, Shane Prendergast; Padraig Walsh, Kieran Joyce, Cillian Buckley; Michael Fennelly, Conor Fogarty; Walter Walsh, Richie Hogan, TJ Reid; Ger Aylward, Colin Fennelly, Eoin Larkin.

Waterford team: Stephen O'Keeffe; Shane Fives, Barry Coughlan, Noel Connors; Tadhg de Búrca, Austin Gleeson, Philip Mahony; Jamie Barron, Darragh Fives; Kevin Moran, Shane Bennett, Jake Dillon; Maurice Shanahan, Michael Walsh, Colin Dunford.

Match details: Sunday; Croke Park; 3.30pm.

Referee: Brian Gavin.

Odds: Kilkenny 2/7; Draw 11/1; Waterford 5/2.

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