Aidan O'Shea: Mayo’s maligned straight shooter

WHAT a strange football year it’s been! One of twists and of turns! One of defiant unity and bitter division! One of utter dejection, and pure unbridled elation! 

And, as its end approaches, one of the greatest Mayo teams, if not the greatest Mayo team, stand ready once again, to test both their nerve and their courage. Once again they have returned to the well, drawing water when so many believed that it had finally run dry.

It was this resilience in the side and its stars that led me to approach Aidan O’Shea about taking part in an American Football challenge for the AIB sponsored ‘The Toughest Trade’ TV show. I believe the challenge revealed much about him in the way he addressed it, and it produced one of the TV moments of the year from a GAA perspective, when he met with ‘the Flying Doctor’, Pádraig Carney.