HIS BROTHER MAY have grabbed the crucial goal that set Mayo up for another trip to the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-finals with a one-point win over Cork but Séamus O’Shea was the real star of the show according to team-mate Lee Keegan.
However, the performance hardly comes as any surprise to those who’ve shared a pitch with the Breaffy clubman, both in training and in the championship.
“Yeah, over the last couple of years Seamie has been [putting in top class performances] regularly.
“He really put his foot to the floor, some of his catches today were just top notch, he absolutely just ate up that middle ground.
“He is very hard to mark, he is very impressive going forward, and he just covered every blade of grass in Croke Park today which is very good for us. ”He led us on and we followed him today and it was probably mainly because of him that we pulled through.
“His performance was just 10 out of 10.”
Keegan also believes Mayo’s display on Sunday silenced those who believe that Alan Dillon and Andy Moran can’t play together.
“They are the stalwarts of our team, they have been the two leaders down through the years on the panel.
“Dillon kicked four monster points and a couple of huge ones there in the second half.
“Andy is just one of the most unselfish man that you could ever hope to play with in terms of the runs that he makes for the team.
“Both of them really stood up today and put their critics to bed. They do get a bit of slack which is not fair, we always look up to these guys and they really stepped up today and made the difference.”
In advance of their fourth All-Ireland semi-final in a row, this time against Kerry, the 24-year old won’t be watching re-runs of Mayo’s 2004 and 2006 final losses to the Kingdom.
“I wasn’t [at the games] and I don’t think I can watch them back either, I would give myself palpations,” he laughs.
“Listen, we have a young team and I don’t think that we will dwell on those games too much. We will look at the past four or five years and we have maybe dominated them over that time.
“But Kerry have been very impressive this year, they are playing very free-flowing football. They are a team we are going to have to take very seriously because if we don’t they are a team that will put us to the sword straight away.
“That is the thing that we have to learn from today that if we give them the chance, Kerry will take them. We will take them very seriously, they have some top forwards there like and we will really have to be on our game in three weeks time or if we don’t we won’t make another final.”
