WE’RE STILL STANDING

Despite Mayo’s many setbacks, talisman Aidan O’Shea firmly believes the talent and desire to land an All-Ireland remains strong

AIDAN O’SHEA is talking about legacy. About whether a career deserves to be defined by an All-Ireland medal. That’s why the name of one of Waterford’s favourite hurling sons Ken McGrath pops into the conversation.

When the three-time All-Star suffered a brain haemorrhage in late 2013 and faced a slow and costly recuperation process, a fundraising match in his honour was arranged at Walsh Park one fine evening the following summer. Thousands showed up to pay homage.

O’Shea speaks of the Laochra Gael episode on TG4 that aired and his own respect for a warrior who gave everything to the cause but who only experienced the adrenaline rush of walking behind the Artane band on All-Ireland final day once in the senior colours of Waterford. And lost.

Mayo’s two-time All-Star footballer is only 26 and yet has already been on the losing team in three finals. The question of whether a particular medal should frame a career is a pertinent one.

‘Is Stevie Gerrard not the player everybody talks about because he didn’t win a Premiership but he won everything else?’ counters O’Shea. ‘If I sat and looked back on my career in a couple of years’ time, I’d like to have an All-Ireland medal beside my name.

‘I watched the Ken McGrath on Laochra Gael. Ken McGrath was a hero. He played on a team sport. Watch him back and you couldn’t say he’s any less of a champion than say Brian Hogan. He had moments of brilliance that only class players do.

‘You can’t downgrade his career just because his team didn’t get over the line.’

The reason Hogan’s name crops up is that the Kilkenny number six who just happens to have a stack of medals also subscribes to the same view. It goes back to the temptation to put an asterisk beside a players’ achievements when he hasn’t landed the big one. ‘He’s had enough magic moments to withstand that. For me, I don’t know – I’ll let other people judge. I just really, really want to get the job done. As an individual and as a group, that’s all we want to do. Because it’s Mayo it’s probably even more magnified.’

He knows his own career is caught up in the county’s ‘nearly man’ tag.

Rolled out to promote AIB’s sponsorship of the Championship, he certainly generated enough headlines with his public retort to the former management team of Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly who stuck the knife in during a December interview – ‘old news’ and ‘factually incorrect’ – a reply which reheated the story of the 2015 player heave.

But that’s his way. He doesn’t see the conflict in giving an honest response, defending his reputation. His critics would rather see him shave off his beard, delete his Twitter and Instagram accounts, and take a vow of silence, and whatever you’re having yourself to somehow enable Mayo win a first All-Ireland since 1951.

In other words, be someone else.

Rather than the talisman who symbolises Mayo’s agonising search for Sam, a journey that restarts this afternoon at MacHale Park when Sligo come to town for a Connacht quarter-final.

When so much of a player’s career is down to fate, history, timing – be it the group of players in the dressing room or in the opposition’s – he understands the importance of leaving behind a body of work he can be proud of.

‘I think we’ve brought Mayo football forward and put us in an area where we’ll compete long after I’m gone on a consistent basis and not be a sporadic team. We have enough of a playing population, enough facilities, enough of a supporter base that that should be a consistent theme regardless of how big Dublin or Kerry get. Hopefully this group of players has helped to achieve that.’ After losing last year’s All-Ireland final by a point after a replay, there is a sense of starting again at the bottom of Mount Everest, having been so close to the summit.

‘It definitely gets harder. You just invest so much time, invest so much into it and fully believe you are going to win. After the first one, you’re probably thinking, “This is going to happen next year… this is going to happen again.” And you’re young. You probably don’t really appreciate the magnitude of what’s just happened.

‘But when you’re 26, and it’s number three, you’re going “Jesus, it’s not like we’re being blown out of the water here. We’re losing by a point.” It is hard to take.

‘Unfortunately that’s sport. You can’t change it. There is a strong bunch there. I still think we are capable of winning an All-Ireland. Fully believe it. We just need to keep that motivation high to get back there and achieve it.’

He doesn’t deny it prompted some long, dark moments of the soul. ‘We’re doing the opposite of say, what Dublin did. We’re doing the “what ifs?”

‘It comes with the territory. People are saying, “Why are they getting to the final and not getting over the line?” That’s obviously the question.

‘We’re very close. I think we have the capability of winning it. I can’t get too bogged down about people giving us criticism for getting to All-Ireland finals. I often say, if you flip that another way, there are a lot of teams who’d like to be doing what we’ve done.’

A change of headspace led him to link up with EJ’s Sligo All-Stars and moonlight as a basketballer during the down season. ‘The club was out; I was frustrated at the end of the year. The first weekend I was off – I’m not one for going off doing things, drinking or anything like that.

‘[I] rang [team coach] Shane O’Meara who would have played in Castlebar years ago. Just said, “Can I come down and play?” He said, “Belt away. No bother.”

‘I loved it. Just having the craic with the lads. I’d love to go back and do it again.

‘I had no expectation of even playing. Just after a couple of weeks I got a few games.

‘Once Basketball Ireland saw I was registered it just blew out everywhere. I was going “Oh, right - I’d better be alright at this now!”’

Instead, he rolled his ankle. Missed the national cup final and returned late in Mayo’s League campaign to make important cameos against Tyrone and Donegal.

As for the summer ahead? First things first. Like overcoming Sligo, even though he hasn’t been selected to start against the Yeats County this afternoon.. ‘We’re going into a Championship campaign where we’re not All-Ireland champions, we’re not even Connacht champions. We’ve a lot of rungs on the ladder that we want to climb. Starting with the Connacht Championship.’

Even after how close Mayo came last September, he’s watched the pecking order change in terms of the All-Ireland race, the familiar refrain from certain quarters that the ship has sailed for this group of players.

‘If you look at the history lesson of our League campaigns in recent years, there is a pattern there. Nearly every year we have one blow-out where we get hammered. We win games when we need to win them. Either floating around mid-table or relegation. So no, I’m not really surprised.

‘Every year people expect this group to fall off. Maybe it’s a logical thing to say the tank has to empty some time.’

That’s just it though, his head and his heart say otherwise.