WESTERN
Keen spirit & fight wins the day for resilient Mayomen
ALL-IRELAND FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
Seven days ago, the big Breaffy man (below) was thrown in at the deep end at full-back on Kieran Donaghy and sunk like a stone.
But while he lost that battle, he and Mayo won their war and celebrated a famous semi-final replay win at fulltime.
Donaghy was so frustrated with the day that he lashed out at O’shea deep into stoppage time and was red carded.
The 34-year-old Tralee man sidestepped retirement in recent years so this could be his last act for Kerry.
O’shea will return to GAA Headquarters on September 17 to play the winners of today’s Dublin-tyrone tie.
If it’s holders Dublin they face then it will be Mayo’s third final meeting with Jim Gavin’s men in five seasons.
Andy Moran represented the sharpened point of Mayo’s attack again, hitting the golden goal that killed off Kerry.
Mayo led by five at halftime and when Moran played a neat one-two with Cillian O’connor and palmed to the net early in the second-half they were in pole position.
Kerry, typically, battled bravely and cut an eight-point deficit following Moran’s goal to just four with 10 minutes remaining. But they never got any closer and lost both Peter Crolwey and Donaghy to red cards in a frantice finale. Paddy Durcan picked up his second yellow for Mayo too as referee David Gough dished out a whopping 18 cards in total. Colm Boyle was terrific along with Kevin Mcloughlin while Aidan O’shea kept Donaghy quiet for the majority of the contest. Kerry were poor at the back in the drawn game and addressed that by playing Paul Murphy as a sweeper in front of their full-back line. They also drafted in Tom O’sullivan and Jonathan Lyne into defence and, initially, things looked good. Lyne opened the scoring for them and back to back Paul Geaney points - he hit 0-10 in total helped them to move 0-4 to 0-3 ahead after 12 minutes. O’shea contested the throw-up as usual, winning the ball, and played centre-back for the first 15 minutes or so on Johnny Buckley. Then he switched with Donal Vaughan onto Donaghy and remained there, winning that battle hands down.
O’shea’s repositioning coincided with Mayo taking control of the game and they outscored Kerry by 1-5 to 0-2 from the 12th minute until half-time.
Diarmuid O’connor’s 28th minute goal for Mayo was the first big turning point and Kerry goalkeeper Brian Kelly will have nightmares about it.
He was flat footed when Vaughan’s point attempt dropped short and O’connor easily beat him in the air to flick to the net.
Former Footballer of the Year James O’donoghue didn’t start but was brought on at half-time with Darran O’sullivan.
O’donoghue scored with his first touch but things quickly went downhill.
Moran palmed in Mayo’s second goal seconds later after beating Shane Enright to Conor Loftus’s diagonal ball in and playing a one-two with Cillian O’connor.
Then O’sullivan was blackcarded - 10 minutes after coming on and, trailing 2-9 to 0-8, Kerry were in real trouble.
They fought gamely and O’donoghue kicked 0-3 but even abandoning their sweeper didn’t work as Mayo held on for a huge win.