Spanner in the works.
From the moment Aidan O’Shea moved to full back to pick up Kieran Donaghy, there was always going to be fireworks.
The Breaffy man has had an impressive year and has looked revitalised in his midfield role up to now.
Mayo manager Stephen Rochford decided to employ the ‘horses for courses’ tactic against Kerry on Sunday, as he moved his strongest and most aerially capable player to full back in an attempt to combat Kieran Donaghy’s prowess in that area of the game.
We all saw the Galway quarter-final where Donaghy made a mockery of Galway’s full back line both scoring and setting up goals while winning high ball after high ball in the danger zone.
Rochford didn’t want this to happen. It didn’t happen.
The criticism was raining in on top of Rochford for his decision by half time.
Playing Aidan O'Shea at full back for the entire game was a worse decision than changing goalkeepers last year. Mayo left that after them.
— Mike Quirke (@Mike_Quirke) August 20, 2017
https://twitter.com/StickyoConnell/status/899305612340846593
https://twitter.com/DaveMcIntyreNT/status/899297404670935041
https://twitter.com/CillianHough/status/899303896828530689
Stephen Rochford is insane
— Ben Carolan (@Ben95carolan) August 20, 2017
Admittedly, Donaghy was effective. He set up Kerry’s first goal for Stephen O’Brien when O’Shea wasn’t tight enough on him.
The Austin Stacks man also set up one or two other points for his Kingdom teammates in the first half.
But that’s what he does, he’s the most dangerous full forward in the game, he wins ball, he lays it off, he’s the ultimate team player.
O’Shea competed well with Donaghy, however. They contested every ball that came near them with ferocious intensity, with Donaghy winning some and O’Shea winning some.
Basketballers battle! Aidan O'Shea gets better of Kieran Donaghy in this instance. Fascinating battle #KerryvMayohttps://t.co/3k6wEAIj4H pic.twitter.com/Z9LKvodJH9
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) August 20, 2017
In the end, Donaghy had caused some, but not the same amount of damage that we are used to seeing from him, while O’Shea made some crucial blocks and interceptions that kick-started many Mayo attacks.
O’Shea got a lot tighter on him as the game went on and he only finished his day with a point.
Would Donal Vaughan or Ger Cafferkey have done much better marking the Kerry giant? They probably wouldn’t have.
It was a risk taken by Stephen Rochford, and he was confident enough from what he had seen from O’Shea in training, and earlier on in the league when he played at full back that he could do a job.
Stephen Rochford on putting Aidan O'Shea to full-back #KERvMAY pic.twitter.com/n6DchpGd5u
— The GAA (@officialgaa) August 20, 2017
“Aidan has played fullback for us in a couple of instances. Earlier this year he played fullback for a while against Donegal on Michael Murphy, last year against Kildare on Kevin Feely. He’s one of our best tacklers.
“Obviously his presence against the physical and aerial threat that Kerry might bring in that area [helped us].
“We’ll look back on it and see if things worked.”
“It’s a bit early to be too clinical in the analysis of it. We’ve to go back on the video to see the benefits we got out of it, what worked well, what needs to improve.
“We haven’t lost anything from it, but we haven’t gained either.
In the end, it didn’t work out as badly as many thought. O’Shea may not have dominated Donaghy, but he was never going to. He acquitted himself with a near impossible task at hand.
