No stopping Aidan O'Shea as he clocks up appearance records
NO STOPPING HIM: Mayo's Aidan O'Shea. Pic: ©INPHO/Tom Maher
As soon as Keith Higgins uttered the profanity, he gestured to apologise but the colourful adjective seemed appropriate.
Mayo’s U20 manager was speaking about the demands placed on the modern-day inter-county footballer and how they need mental breaks from the game.
Aidan O’Shea, he added, was the exception to that rule. “Aidan is a different fucking animal,” declared Higgins. “Because he's going for 16, 17 years. He has to keep going constantly because he says if he stops his body will shut down.”
O’Shea already holds the record for the most championship appearances by an outfield player, currently eight ahead of the retired Seán Cavanagh. All going well for him and Mayo, he will hit the 100 mark in May's Connacht SFC final.
Line out in Austin Stack Park on Saturday and he will be on course to appear in all of Mayo’s Division 1 fixtures this term as he previously did three years ago. The Breaffy man has featured in the county’s last 17 league and championship fixtures.
For a man three months shy of his 36th birthday, they are statistics borne of endurance. “I've never seen a man in my life to mind the body as good as him,” says his old team-mate Mickey Conroy. “Consistently professional is how I would put it. He's a freak, like. He'd never miss a session off-season.
“A few of us used to meet up for breakfast Saturday mornings, a long time ago now. It was only in the off-season he’d have carbs of any note, fried potatoes at a push. In-season, not a chance. He’d have scrambled egg and bacon, and he’d be taking the fat off the bacon.”
At the outset of his Mayo career, O’Shea’s basketball pursuits may have complemented his football, but Conroy remembers the sprained ankle he sustained lining out for the EJ Sligo All-Stars in 2017. It was O’Shea’s first time playing competitively on the hardwood in seven years.
His league that season was confined to substitute appearances in the final two rounds. It was the worst injury he experienced in a career largely unblighted by setbacks. The last championship game O’Shea missed was in 2012. Since then, he has been an ever-present for Mayo in 85 consecutive SFC matches.
Saturday will be his 27th time at senior level facing Kerry, the native county of his parents Jim and Sheila and his wife Kristin, and his seventh in total heading to Tralee. Between league and championship, he has experienced 10 wins against Kerry, drawing on three and losing 14 times.
There can be no getting away from the fact O’Shea has been a lightning rod for angst in the county following defeats. Outside Mayo, there has also been a strange and ironic fascination with the attention he attracts, which has deepened with each of the six All-Ireland final defeats he has suffered.
“He's a happy-go-lucky character but he’d also have a tight family, and he’d stay in his own bubble,” Conroy notes. “Possibly down the years, stuff would have hurt him. Like, you can't shield the whole lot, but if he wasn't so good, if he hadn't made so many appearances, you wouldn't be talking about him.
“And if it wasn't Mayo, like… it's just Mayo are box office all the time, and I can tell you one thing, when he's gone, they'll be saying, ‘God, I'd love to get him back now.’
“The funny thing about it is if things go wrong in Kerry, whatever it is, they don't seem to go to (David) Clifford, like. When things go wrong in Mayo, ‘Oh, it has to be Aidan O'Shea’.
“We’re very good at blaming management too. We’re very good finding someone to blame when really the team weren’t good enough or out of form. Because Aidan has played so well, so often, when his performance levels came down, people looked to get on his back.”
O’Shea has netted two goals in the league thus far and there are indications he could benefit more than others from the direct football Mayo are playing.
“A lot of people might have said the new rules won’t suit him but he’s changed with the game before,” remarks Conroy. “He has won All Stars in three different positions and that says a lot.
“He probably has to reinvent himself again. If they kick more ball to him, he will do well. I think he’ll be more effective as the ground hardens.
“To even have the hunger to come back is ferocious. Every single year. I think he’ll keep going until he realises there are better players there. I can’t see him retiring when he’s still making the team. I don’t see him wanting to be a 20-minute player but there’s no sign of him stopping right now.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
