"Is there a concerted effort to paint Kerry as the villains and Dublin as the choirboys?", asks Tomás Ó Se ahead of today's Allianz FL Division 1 decider.

Writing in The Irish Independent this weekend, Ó Se gave his reaction to the public utterances that have dominated the build-up to the latest chapter in the famed rivalry.

Kerry manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice and former Dublin players Paul Curran and Paul Bealin have all had their say and the former Kingdom half-back wonders if Dublin are actively trying to set the media agenda.

"I have great respect for Paul Curran as a fella and he was a great footballer but either he's stirring s**t or he can't read a game," Ó Se states.

"Paul Bealin came out this week too and said Fitzmaurice's comments were about deflection. To me, it felt like he was moving the agenda away from what Eamonn tried to shine a light on.

"So you do have to ask yourself, is there a concerted effort to paint Kerry as the villains and Dublin as the choirboys, in the same way Mayo felt last year? And this time it's happening in April, not ahead of an All-Ireland final replay.

"Sometimes I think Jim Gavin infers stuff without actually saying them in his interviews. If he has an issue, he should come out and say it himself.

"But if they are trying to get an agenda out there in the media, I think they are being too smart about it, to the point where it is backfiring on them.

"Let me stress again, I have no problem with the hard stuff. I dished out enough of it myself and I believe football is at its best when there's physicality to it. But the holier-than-thou stuff is hard to stomach. And being reduced to the blame-game in the paper isn't something I'm comfortable with, but it's where we find ourselves this week."

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