Aidan O’Shea may have been fortunate to receive an All Star nomination this week but that is not all he has received. Most of it has been cruel and unwarranted.
Mayo are hurting. They will hurt all through winter but no county is better at picking itself up and grasping onto hope.
On Saturday, thousands of football fans in Mayo turned their attention to club football. O’Shea, named in the Breaffy midfield, captained his team to a six point win over Davitts.
Just a week after the latest heartbreak in his still young GAA career, O’Shea was back at it.
The Breaffy starting 15 to play Davitts in round 3 of the @MayoGAA Senior Football Championship. #GAA pic.twitter.com/TyijsFtAk2
— Breaffy GAA (@BreaffyGAA) October 8, 2016
Perhaps midfield is the best place for O’Shea. Perhaps. He has been playing senior intercounty football for the past seven years and the debate is still going on about his best position.
What should not be up for debate is how much of himself O’Shea gives for the Mayo cause. He gave it everything in the two finals against Dublin but never really got on a roll. He was not the only one.
He put his hand up for the ball and took on shots but he never added to his modest scoring return of the championship summer. His best contributions were the burst that set up Lee Keegan and his harrying, and turnovers, of Dublin defenders and midfielders.
Still, he left Croke Park last Saturday with regrets that won’t easily wash away.
At first, the online reaction was one of mirth:
Pretty sure I saw Aidan O'Shea react that way to @PhillyMcMahon yesterday.#DubsBlogger @FM104 @AIGIreland pic.twitter.com/LPa9B4WvR2
— FM104 Dubs Blog (@FM104DubBlogger) October 2, 2016
But the moans and gripes were not far away:
‘Never mind that,’ tweeted one irate fan, ‘how many Finals and Semi Finals is it now that Aidan O’Shea’s bottled it in now? For a big name he has no guts’
He had to contend with this type of stuff:
Watching last Saturdays game again & my daughter shouts look at that gimp @AIDOXI he's going bald 😂😂😂😂
— Alan Cody 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 (@goonercody) October 7, 2016
Sunday and Monday were full of recriminations and O’Shea’s social notifications – if he had them turned on – would have been pinging. It bled into Tuesday too:
maybe because he can't do anything right. Not fit enough for midfield, too slow for CHF and too easily marked at FF.
— John Haran (@johnjazzharan) October 4, 2016
Then, on Wednesday, the All Star nominations came out. O’Shea was one of 18 forwards included, along with the likes of Cillian O’Connor, Paul Geaney and Diarmuid Connolly.
2/2 Cluxton being lauded, hardly made a save. Aidan O'Shea very poor and gets nominated on reputation. Kilkenny PoY?? Laughable.. https://t.co/J53dXAPjfU
— RichardCommins (@Richard_Commins) October 6, 2016
https://twitter.com/Curlygus/status/783966191035572224
The grief was coming all the way from Fremont, California.
It has been heartening to see how the county of Mayo, and the nation as a whole, has responded to the anguish of goalkeeper Rob Hennelly after his bad day out at Croke Park.
It would be nice if people could see fit to lay off O’Shea for a few months.
He has big, broad shoulders but even he should not have to carry this amount of bullshit around with him.
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