Whatever Aidan O’Shea had to do, it was worth doing.
Mayo couldn’t have done much more to win an All-Ireland.
After 10 games, four draws, two extra time battles and doing everything right at the right time, Dublin were just one point better than them and there was nothing they could’ve done differently.
Aidan O’Shea will collect his third All-Star next month after a super campaign that saw him dominate skies all over the country and run over the top of any opposition stupid enough to stand in front of him. It just clicked for him when he was a late inclusion in the team against Derry and he never looked back from that round 2 qualifier.
It took him some time to get there though, controversy after controversy – and none really of his own making.
How could anyone ever forget the time he stood for a photo with some kids after a challenge game?
Then, from the 2015 management fallout, he was still being asked questions and accused in May of making “unsubstantiated claims” against the media.
And after that, of course, was the fallout that most of us missed between him and Stephen Rochford because Aidan O’Shea had apparently grown too big for his boots. He played just 17 minutes against Sligo and didn’t start against Galway in the Connacht semi-final defeat and the math was done for him, something was amiss in the Mayo camp.
“I had the ankle injury for the league and I came back for the last two league games and we got the result to stay up,” O’Shea explained to The GAA Hour responding to claims that him and Rochford weren’t getting along.
“I was training well coming into the championship but it was actually around that Meath game [selfie gate] when we went to Carton House where I picked up a flare up with my groin.
“To be honest with you, I was very frustrated. I was like, ‘f**k, championship is just around the corner and I’m struggling here’.
“I just got to the stage where I just blanked everything out. I turned off everything – social media, everything. I turned it all off my phone because it had just gotten a bit crazy.
“I put it all to one side and when we lost to Galway I was just thinking that I need to be ready for the next game, whoever we’re playing. And I need to be ready to contribute because that could’ve been our last game – we weren’t playing well and we looked a bit stale.
“I just wanted to be able to contribute in some way and we could’ve lost that game but thankfully we didn’t. Then every week was the same, I just wanted to get another couple of yards into myself and try to improve. That’s the way I was the summer right through and that’s how I stayed away from all the shite that was going on in the background.”
Listen to the full interview below from 21:50.
