O’Shea brothers to the fore as Mayo prepare for another crack at Sam

The O’Shea brothers routine rarely sees all three of them on the field together.

Tom Parsons usually relieves Seamus, the eldest, after 50 odd minutes flogging himself around the middle third while Conor, the youngest, has grown into a habit of making a memorable 10 to 15 minute impact.

Aidan needs to keep on keeping on in footballer of the year form if Mayo are to have any chance of ending the 65 year wait for Sam Maguire, which has included seven All-Ireland final defeats.

“Ah sure we need him to play well,” said Seamus of Aidan. “He is one of our most important players. He has to perform if we are to continue to win games.”

Conor O’Shea’s goal, Mayo’s second on Sunday, ended any chance of Tipperary staying with them. It was a swing of a boot that ended up with ball in the bootm corner.

“Yeah, he did well. Andy (Moran) is calling him Davor Šuker inside. It was a crucial score, delighted for him.”

Be interesting to learn if the youngest O’Shea knows much about the former Yugoslav striker who retired in 2003. Or where Yugoslavia once was.

“Him and a few more of them are having an impact (off the bench), the last three or four games he has come in and been big for us,” the oldest O’Shea continued.

Another, less impressive, aspect to Mayo’s play has been their inability to stitch a sustained period of the best form together.

Instead they have been winning matches with 10, 15 minute scoring bursts, like the 1-7 rattled off before half-time.

“We have a habit of doing that. We did it against Westmeath as well.

We were well on top and about 10 or 15 minutes after half-time we just fell asleep or something. Same thing again so that disappointing. Have to hand it to Tipperary, they played well for that period. We were a bit slow to react. Eventually we came to terms with it.”

“We are playing well in patches, we put 10 or 15 minutes together here and there. Put up a big score and seem to drift off a bit and let teams back into it.

“Always striving to get that 70 minute performance. We were a bit short of that today. Look, it’s something to work on ahead of the final.”

Presumably manager Stephen Rochford will be able to pull the majority of his panel, those who need resting anyway, from the club championship action in Mayo this weekend.

“It’s Dublin or Kerry so we will have to be at top for to beat them.

But we have four weeks now, a nice amount of time to get ready. We’ve played a lot of games in the last six or seven weeks so it is important we get a bit of rest this week.

“It’s probably no harm.”