“Of course I did the warm down” – Aidan O’Shea gives his account on ‘selfie-gate’

It took the country by storm in a way.

Yep, a GAA player taking a selfie. Before the championship season even started it seemed that pockets of the media were ready to write off Mayo, they're the bridesmaids and never the brides. So, to a certain extent, it is fair. There's a line to be drawn of how critical you can be of a team that were the finalists a year prior but it was well and truly crossed throughout the summer after lacklustre displays against Cork, Derry and Roscommon. And then the replay happened against the Connacht champions and the rest is history, Mayo may not have won the All-Ireland but they shut critics up finally and now are rightfully regarded as the second-best team in the country. It's no consolation to the players, they'd rather an All-Ireland title but if there is any positive to take out of 2017 it is that the naysayers can be no longer, Mayo are a good team. But rewind to the shitstorm that surrounded Aidan O'Shea back in May for taking selfies with young fans and you can see why both the Breaffy man and his team would be upset over their treatment. As the story goes, O'Shea opted not to do the warm down and instead was too big for his boots and rather take snaps with young fans. That wasn't the case but the reaction to it would make you think otherwise but the 27-year-old finally set the record straight. After being named the captain of the International Rules squad, O'Shea was speaking at the squad announcement to Colm Parkinson on the GAA Hour about the incident, if you can even call it an incident:

"We were playing in Mullingar Shamrocks, the game was over and a lot of our boys had togged in because it was one of those games where they played three thirds and two different squads and you had half the Meath team off the pitch," O'Shea said. "I actually played the three thirds because I was coming back from injury trying to get some game time so I played as much as I could and literally as we shook hands with the Meath boys a couple of kids came over my way and asked me for a photograph and unfortunately that was painted in the wrong light. "I know the club, (Mullingar) Shamrocks, text me afterwards to apologise for what was said and again I couldn’t believe that this was actually a story. "Of course I did the warm down, it wasn’t just myself that took photographs the young lads wanted pictures with a lot more than just me. "Obviously, somebody went on it and thought this is a big deal, I don’t think there was an issue and Stephen (Rochford) never came and said ‘Aidan, what the hell were you doing.’"

You can listen to the full interview in the show below  https://soundcloud.com/sportsjoe-gaa-hour/aidan-oshea-interview-darach-honans-hips-ballyragget-celebrations