Newbridge or No-wear: The Kerry-Kildare link

Perusing the Allianz League fixtures in Round 1 and it's clear that one match-up leaves the rest in the shade in terms of back-story and potential needle.

We don't have a great tradition of heavyweight boxing style smack-talk in the GAA.

Babs Keating was occasionally in the habit of making hostages to fortune in advance of championship matches, whether it was discussing the unlikelihood of donkeys winning derbies in 1990 or suggesting that hurling "needed" another Tipp-Kilkenny decider in 1993 ahead of his team's ill-fated semi-final against Galway.

But by and large, the overwhelming majority of managers and players adhere rigidly to the "Kilkenny footballers are always tough in their backyard" school of pre-match comment.

But the upcoming game in Newbridge has seen a new frontier opened up the under-studied field of GAA smack-talk.

Two days out from the game, a member of the home team's management set-up had a jibe at the state of the opposition's playing gear on social media.

The tweet was subsequently deleted, though suffice to say, it was issued by one P. Galvin. (For those that didn't see, he posted a picture of Kerry's divisive new jersey with the caption - "This looks like what you get when you borrow an idea but can't execute it")

A member of one backroom team turning fashion critic on the visiting team's clobber - we might safely assume this is a first for the association.

Perhaps the last time it occurred in any sport was when Alex Ferguson claimed in one of his autobiographies that the Manchester United players were given an almighty lift before the 1996 FA Cup final upon seeing the Liverpool spice boys prancing around the Wembley turf in their infamous white suits.

This is one of a number of strands - admittedly the