GAA jerseys — the 2018 rankings (so far …)
O’Neills are off to the races for the 2018 good and early and had a number of jersey reveals in time for Santa. They took that opportunity to unveil their new typeface, a more friendly lowercase sans serif text that looks really well on the shirts. It’s a move away from the boxy, All-Caps script that they have had variants of for many years now.
A couple of things strike me about the shirts, mainly how much the dominant colours of a county can change from one shirt to the next. To me, this is like putting out the French tricolore for a Six Nations with a turquoise blue, just for the craic. Small changes here and there fine, but when for example Tipperary lost that great strong Royal Blue in their jersey, I think that is kind of a shame. Something that Wexford avoided with a more delicate ‘brush’ in the purple of their home shirt, to not lose the strength of their own colour. My homeland of Down is not so lucky, and while on the website the new Down shirts look great, the end result in the hand is a very wish-washy effort that looks already like Erin’s ma from Derry Girls has put it through the wash 10 times with the darks.
New crests
A class wee feature is the innovation the company continue to put into the presentation of the county crest. I wrote a while back how O’Neills had toggled between printed directly on the fabric to a detailed stitching, to a pre-fabricated woven patch. Now, they have taken another step with a plastic pop-out tab that is again stitched on.
It takes me back to the Man United badges of the 90’s, a really cool innovation and fair play to them for trying something new. It looks like an absolute B to fix on though, I will be interested to see how these survive multiple washes at 40 °C.
The Rankings
Anyways — to the rankings! The new shirts are a step up for, nice clean with nice detailed embellishments that add and don’t subtract from the overall look. Still only one other maker in the market — and Azzuri get their entry in the top ten. See what you think.
10. Waterford
Waterford deserve credit for being the lone voice in the GAA not in the O’Neill’s cabal. Azzuri have brought new and interesting fabrics in their kit ranges, and this year’s shirt comes on the back of one of my favourite shirts of the past few years that featured a nice deep ribbon collar, a detail O’Neill’s seem to have taken into their ’18 shirts.
This new version however falls a little flat for me, as the best feature of the jersey, a nice blue collar at the end of the sleeve emblazoned with ‘Déise’ is basically invisible when the shirt is worn. Hard man Noel Connors from Passage being a good example, his biceps are so bloody big, the end of the sleeve gets wrapped up, and the end result is a rather plain looking white jersey. Still, Azzuri have the sense to pair it up with block colour blue shorts and the combo still looks very well. Who knows how many chances we will have to see McGrath’s men wear it though in 2018!
9. Roscommon
Spoiler alert — I don’t mind a pinstripe! My home club of Burren have one going now which I think is super and a nice bit of jersey nostalgia with the lines of the Meath shirt of the late eighties that featured Brain Stafford, Mick Lyons and the like. In another nice hat-tip to the clubs, it has the county map on the back showing the division of the parishes, a nice acknowledgement of where the county team really comes from.
8. Warrickshire
I’m known to be belligerent from time to time and here I go again. Just throwing this in here, to remind the GAA world that Warrickshire compete in the National leagues as a county! They do so albeit in the netherworld of Division 3a where they top the table, and after winning the Lory Meagher in 2017 with former Antrim and Loughgiel great Liam Watson as scorer in chief. O’Neills, put them in the County section please ! I actually don’t mind the Jersey by the way, not bad for being sent to Coventry…
7. Carlow
This one pains me. The Carlow shirt should be the no 1 jersey. All the time. They are endowed with such an interesting palette, it seems the design team in Strabane are struggling to get the best. Look to the African nations is my advice. The vast majority of African countries involve a combination of these colours and come up with fantastically eccentric blends of colour. Get bold Carlow!
Just look at the College, IT Carlow have done, brilliant. Oh and year by the way, they sponsor you, Carlow County Board!
6. Wicklow
You can call me a hypocrite if you want, but I really like the brushed look for the Wicklow shirt. To me, the GAA is better served when you have a nice Dublin jersey, and a good Kilkenny one. A bit like basketball is better when the Lakers and Celtics are doing well. These polyester prints are important symbols of the association, as we are going to see these teams a lot during the year. That’s why I was offended that the classic look of the Tipp top was tarnished with the dilution of the colours, I think it’s totally fine to experiment here. I think it’s different, and was sort of a trail blazer in the county scene, being the first home shirt to feature this texturing which is in such vogue in sports apparel generally. Bravo, Wicklow.
5. Fermanagh
More fruit of the staff memo that probably read something like — ‘no funny stripes or licking fire in the shirts this year’. Nice clean colours here, with strong lines and a shirt that looks really good in the hand. Perhaps an accident, but I think thre Sponsor logo blends quite nicely into the overall design of the shirt, as opposed to something like Westmeath’s tacky ‘Renault’ that looks as sleek as a marathon number pinned to a running vest. Like I always say, if you are a marginal county, a nice shirt is a big boost! I love this one and look forward to seeing Seamie Quigley squeeze back into the Koolite.
4. Antrim
Further proof of my blindness to the County badge, my arch rivals Antrim are getting a high ranking here again, with another great looking shirt. A few years back Antrim have gone with a navy trim which goes really nicely with the yellow and give the gear a nice consistency through the other items in the range. They have also stuck with a consistency in colours, something that sounds simple, but a detail many counties have struggled with.
They continue to push the boundaries with their keepers jersey, something that Chrissy O’Connell benefits from greatly. I just hope they remembered to send Carl Frampton a new one!
3. Kerry
My God was there every a build up to a jersey like this one ?
With a Kerry brother in law I have a high sensitivity to all Paul Galvin activity, but the hubbub around this shirt was ridiculous.
‘Back to Gold’ was the tagline, with a return to a strong warm gold band, which gave birth to a keeper jersey that could be spread on warm batch loaf, and probably inspired the daring new 3rd jersey that was outed against Meath in February.
The detail I most admire from this 1985 inspired design is the placement of the numbers. They are ever so slightly over half way up the back, a little tweak that for all I would make fun of his bomber jackets, that Galvin is undoubtedly responsible for.
2. Donegal
Donegal have been at the top of their jersey game for the past three editions now, and the 2018 edition is a pearler. I spoke above about the innovation of the crest, they also have an unusual tweak where the collar colour is the same as the main body colour. Normally O’Neills like to make a nice contrast of colours there, but I think this works really well and gives the shirt nice continuity. They also have the common sense to pair it up with colour contrasting shorts.
Down were renowned in the 60's for being the first county in Ireland to have shorts that weren’t white. Hey Wexford! How cool would your kit look with some yella-belly shorts! Key Kilkenny! Down got the black shorts 70 years ago, give it a whirl!
1 Tyrone
This one is tough for me. It’s tough for me to admit Tyrone are number one in anything, but for me their latest effort is incomparable. A white jersey is hard to pull off, but O’Neills have come up with a sheen and a creaminess that is bright and radiant, in complete opposition to the football Tyrone normally play.
It features the cuffed sleeve that is a great addition to the ’18 editions, but unlike the others it is of a woven fabric, as opposed to polyester on the Down jersey, which gives it a much nicer feel and comfort too. We really need to ease off on the stars on jerseys, imagine if Kilkenny had a star for every All-Ireland, there wouldn’t be much room left for a sponsors badge.
There we have it, my top ten. A bit Ulster heavy perhaps, but strong contenders there and a lot of guff that didn’t have any business in the top ten. Get ranking and ratig yourself and look for the next jersey article coming — the top ten away jerseys .. cant wait.
CJK
