“The whole thing had lost the plot at that stage.”
With the hundred different talking points that have come from the Dublin v Mayo game at the weekend, one thing sort of went under the radar.
Aidan O’Shea running onto the field, still wearing a bib after being substituted earlier on, and getting involved in an altercation with Philly McMahon was an unusual thing to do.
The scrummage itself has been well documented and discussed, but O’Shea’s actual decision to come from the sideline, knowing full well he isn’t a part of what’s going on in the field anymore, and choosing to get involved, was very strange.
Speaking on the GAA Hour, Colm Parkinson raises the point.
“Philly came on and started pinching lads, and Aidan O’Shea ran in on the field, and that needs to be called out as well, because you can’t be doing that.
“He was in on the field, getting involved with Philly, and it was all getting very messy at that stage.”
Former Armagh star Aaron Kernan was also on the show, and he couldn’t make sense of the Mayo captain’s decision to run onto the field after being subbed.
“To be honest, the whole thing had lost the plot at that stage, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing because I didn’t hear the whistle blowing, and I don’t even believe the whistle was blown.
“I don’t know whether full time was up or not, but to be fair to Conor Lane he had to just stop it at that stage, it was chaos.
“But what was Aidan O’Shea doing running out, into the middle of the field, after being that rank during the game? He had a stinker.
“His head was gone and he was sitting in the stands, he was just getting caught up in the whole emotion where there was the big comeback. They had drawn level, but I would say he found himself in the middle of that field and he was thinking, ‘what am I after doing, what am I doing here?'”
“To be fair to him, he wasn’t in the stands, he was down warming up, he would have ran in, he obviously got a rush of blood,” added Parkinson.
“That’s fair enough,” replied Kernan. “But under no circumstances do you run onto the field whenever you’re off as a sub in that situation, it’s certainly not going to sort things out, it’s just going to make things worse.
“It was only a bit of handbags, pushing and shoving, the usual, trying to see who can rip whose jersey here, but it wasn’t helpful to the situation.”
“To be fair, Aidan O’Shea is getting a free pass on this. If that was Philly McMahon running on with a bib on from the sideline, that reaction would have been a lot worse, I’m sure,” concluded Parkinson.
