MAYO MIDFIELDER AIDAN O’Shea has said that Saturday’s All-Ireland Football semi-final replay extra-time loss to Kerry was made all the more painful by the subsequent resignation of manager James Horan.
Speaking on Newstalk’s Off the Ball on Tuesday evening, O’Shea told Adrian Barry that Mayo had firmly set their sights on reaching a third straight All-Ireland final and that he took no solace from the fact it was arguably the most entertaining match of the championship to date.
“It’s difficult to take; we were probably expecting to come out of that game winning and into our third All-Ireland final in a row. We’ve kind of got used to it over the last couple of years, and it was the ultimate goal this year, but it hasn’t happened.
“I’ve heard people on about it being a great game, but it’s hard to appreciate it, when you come out on the wrong side of it. It’s a terrible loss, and it’s probably doubled by fact of it being the end of an era with James (Horan) going as well.”
Having had time to look back on what was a scintillating 90 minutes of football at the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick, the Breaffy man claimed Mayo’s slow start and inability to capitalise on their early scores in extra-time is what ultimately cost them another crack at the Sam Maguire.
“I’ve watched pretty much all of it this stage. The first 20 minutes we didn’t play as well as we would of liked, we were probably a bit careless in possession. I know we were up by a lot with the two goals we got, but we could have been up by a bit more.
“The start of extra-time as well, we were flying I thought, but we didn’t put the points on the board. Leroy’s (Lee Keegan) chance with the goal would have put us five points up, and they’re the kind of chances you have to take, and we didn’t take them and Kerry came back well.”