Listen up Dublin
Aidan O’Shea has blasted his way through the Sligo and Donegal defenses so far this summer as Mayo look once again to end the curse of ’51.
The Breaffy clubman at full-forward appears to be the perfect mix of power and skill that no team so far in this year’s championship has been able to cope with.
However the former minor star is likely to face his toughest test yet when he squares up to Dublin’s Rory O’Carroll this Sunday in the All-Ireland semi final in Croke Park.
The battle may very well define the entire game, but one former Mayo forward, and the county’s top scorer of all time, is unsure if O’Shea is really a natural number 14.
In an interview in today’s Irish Examiner Conor Mortimer feels that the 25-year-old is not the finished article,
“I played alongside him at full forward and he wasn’t a great full forward at that time.”
“It wasn’t his position and I still don’t think it’s his position. He’s a midfielder, he’s not a full forward but it’s working for the cause and that’s what it boils down to.
O’Shea’s move to full-forward is seen by many as the secret to the county ending their long wait for Sam Maguire. However Mortimer feels that Dublin will have a plan to counteract his human wrecking ball impression this Sunday, even if Aidan O’Shea’s hands are something that Tony Stark would cook up in his lab,
“He’s a great man to win a ball, his hands are like shovels. It’s a matter of the corner forwards making the right runs off him because against Dublin when you get ball you won’t have space to run through four or five defenders and kicking a score.”
“He’s a great player to be playing alongside now. He’ll lay off ball to you all day. It’s up to the lads who are there now to do it. I think that’s what Dublin will try and do: try and stop the ball getting into O’Shea rather than try and stop O’Shea.”
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