Aidan O’Shea is no slouch.
But when he tried to test himself against the best of the underage NFL talent at a combine, he found that there is fast, and there is American football fast.
The Mayo footballer’s exploits in America as part of this year’s Toughest Trade documentary will air on RTÉ 2 tonight as ex-Miami Dolphin Roberto Wallace traded NFL for life as a GAA player in Breaffy.
O’Shea admits that the biggest difficulty he had adjusting to the gridiron was trying to get the very most out of just a few seconds of play, compared to the helter-skelter nature of 35 minutes of a half Gaelic football.
“The complete and utter explosiveness of the game, there’s no wasted energy. I might be starting on a line and I think I might have started quite well and they are like ‘no forget about it you were too slow getting off the mark’ or I might have left my foot behind me.
“There was no wasted movement whatsoever because time is everything in their game so that was the standout, no wasted movement at all.”
The Breaffy man spent his week in America undergoing various physical tests at the in Exos San Diego. He trained with NFL hopeful Travis Wilson as well as reviewing some kicking instructions from NFL legend John Carney as well as spending time with the Nighthawks, a local semi-pro team.
All his practice, and drills, then went toward a Combine in Houston where he took on dozens of young players hoping to hear their names called at next month’s NFL Draft.
O’Shea also got the opportunity to meet with one of two surviving All-Ireland winners from the Mayo team of 1950/51, Padraig Carney. It was a huge highlight for the 25-year-old.
“It was brilliant. He’s obviously a bit of a legend. He’s been a high achiever over there as well in his own right. So it was a special moment.
“In his house he’s got a basement and it’s just Mayo, all his pictures from playing from Mayo, all his medals, he’s got GAAGO and he watches it and rings Paddy Prendergast and praises it and gives out and anything any normal GAA player does. He’s still mad keen on it and it’s good to see.”
As a man well used to high fielding, as well as using his physical heft, O’Shea decided, or perhaps was told, that life as a tight-end would suit his skills best in a combine. While more used to breaking through tackles than blocking would-be tacklers, O’Shea enjoyed the challenge of stopping much bigger men.
“So I did a bit of receiving, a bit of blocking, depending on what I was told basically, but depending on teams over there, some tight ends have a split 50/50 defence/offence depending on what their coaches like, they might be 70/30 defence/offence. You run a lot of the routes that your wide receivers and that run but, yeah, there is a bit of defence too.”
Last week, Steve Harmison was stunned by the effort and dedication of amateur athletes when he tried out for Borris-Ileigh hurling club as Brendan Maher tried cricket in Australia in the first part of this year’s series.
O’Shea reveals that the American footballers could not comprehend the idea of an amateur game either.
“Yeah, they didn’t understand the fact that 80,000 people would watch a game and that we do it for nothing.
“I remember telling a fella from work who asked, ‘can you watch Gaelic football?,’ yeah, it’s on GAAGO. So he’s going back to America and he says, ‘yeah, I can watch your games. So I pay €12 to watch you play and you get nothing?’
“I said, yeah, that’s the way it works!”
While not revealing too much about how he got on, apart from being happy with his stats, can we expect O’Shea to head west some day in the future after his experience?
No is the short answer, but he does feel American franchises are missing out on Irish talent.
“No, I definitely don’t but I do think that some of the boys in Gaelic football would. I’m not a free-taker in our game but the likes of Bryan Sheehan or Michael Murphy or Cillian O’Connor, [Stephen] Cluxton like.
“It’s literally just repetition of technique and I went out there thinking, ‘They throw the ball back and you just run up and kick it’ but it’s actually very, very technical. I probably didn’t appreciate that at the time, I do now.
“There’s definitely ability for some of our lads to be able to do it.”
.@AIDOXI a potential Placekicker? Technique looks good anyway! Find out on #TheToughest Trade, Tues, 9.55pm, @RTE2.https://t.co/bhWbL0jJtj
— AIB_GAA (@AIB_GAA) March 13, 2016
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