O’Shea plays it straight

There’s no beating around the bush with Aidan O’Shea.

That shouldn’t come as much surprise. The Breaffy man, after all, had no qualms in revealing before Christmas he was the subject of a four-week ban for his late elbow on Paul Galvin in the Mayo-Kerry All-Ireland semi-final.

It would have seen him miss the final had the Connacht champions won.

He could have easily kept his mouth shut — nobody would have be any the wiser about the suspension — but the 22-year-old realised there was no harm either in revealing the news about the redundant punishment.

Likewise now he has no problem in being brutally honest about Mayo.

Up until last year, he says they had played a gentle style of football completely at odds with how the game is played by the best now.

“For a long time Mayo have been looked on as a soft touch. Jack O’Connor made reference to it in his book about the finals a few years ago,” he said.

“Last year it suited us to be that [more physical] way because we were a bigger team and that helped. We’re nowhere near the physicality levels where we need to be but you can’t play the, let’s be honest, soft kind of football we played three years ago because we’ll be blown away against some of the bigger teams. Our physical conditioning has improved and we’re getting there but we’re still a couple of years behind the likes of Dublin and Cork in that regard.”

O’Shea’s candour isn’t confined to his team; he just as readily takes a microscope to his own game. Last season saw him move from full-forward to midfield, which was received in general as a success.

He wasn’t without his critics though. A tendency to carry the ball into the tackle was a flaw picked up on by pundits.

“That’s something James [Horan] and myself have talked about over the last couple of weeks. But I don’t think I took the ball into tackles as much as people think. When I did it against Cork it got highlighted because they got a goal from it after they turned the ball over.

“Coming from full-forward where you’re a lot of the time in a one-on-one situation and closer to the goals, you’re not as punished as much if the ball is turned over.”

O’Shea doesn’t exactly wear a cilice on his thigh, but he understands he’s a work in progress at midfield.

“I was only getting up to speed really coming to the end of the year with the whole midfield sector. I’ve obviously looked back on the games and taken simple things from them.

“Things like, off the top of my head, my scoring return. I didn’t score for the whole season which is criminal for somebody like myself. I’m looking forward to the season ahead and hoping there’s more to come.”

Just as easy as he finds it to pick up on areas where he needs to improve, O’Shea recognises there is incredible potential in the Mayo set-up.

“We’d have big expectations of ourselves. I don’t think we have a low opinion of ourselves. We’re confident of our expectations.

“There’s huge talent in the squad and I don’t think we’ve justified that. Anything but where we got to last year would be a failure because last year in a lot of the games we were tentative and didn’t play to our potential.”

As you have already figured out, O’Shea isn’t afraid of speaking his mind. Based in Westport on a six-month work placement with Allergan Pharmaceuticals, the DIT student recently stood up for the Dublin-based Club Mayo using his Twitter account.

The supporters group were recently told by the Mayo County Board their status had been “withdrawn with immediate effect” and were no longer entitled to raise funds for the county teams.

“I wouldn’t have a bad word said about them,” insisted O’Shea.

“It’s very disappointing what has happened. Sometimes, Mayo... we make things more public than they should be.”

It’s all on the players over the next while, though. The next six games in as many weeks will test Mayo’s resolve but no Division 1 team’s incentive to reach the semi-finals is stronger.

With 11 weeks between their last round league game and Connacht semi-final, reaching the knock-out stages will cut that “idle” time by either one week or three.

Starting with the trip to Armagh this evening, the straight talking has to be backed up with equally direct action.