Andy Moran expects to see Aidan O’Shea back in the green and red of Mayo next year.
O’Shea, who made his championship debut for Mayo in 2009 and turns 34 on Saturday, rolled back the years in recent times to deliver several hugely impressive championship performances.
He has now played more intercounty senior football championship matches than any outfield player in the history of the game after making his 91st SFC appearance in the defeat to Derry in Castlebar.
But given his length of service, there has been speculation about O’Shea’s future, though Moran doesn’t subscribe to the theory the Breaffy man might not return in 2025.
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“I don’t think there’s any question about Aidan coming back,” says Moran. “There are maybe one or two others that you’d be more worried about. But Aidan, I suppose I had the advantage that I never relied on pace when I got a bit older and Aidan is kind of the same, he was never going to be the fastest player in the world.
“He was outstanding last Saturday night. For anyone that was at the game, young [Eoin] McEvoy tried to take him up the line at one stage, I was just like, ‘bad idea’.
“He turned him back in and to see him playing like that again was a joy to all Mayo people, to be honest.”
Mayo’s championship exit has, as ever, generated plenty of debate within the county as to how their season came undone. This was the second of Kevin McStay’s four-year term and Moran expects him to stay at the helm.
However, Moran — who has been in charge of Leitrim for the last three seasons — says he has noticed an increased level of scrutiny and expectation on all managers.
“Going to the Connacht final, I remember saying to Jenny, my wife, that it feels like the two managers are under pressure, Kevin and Pádraic [Joyce],” says Moran.
“Pádraic was going for his third Connacht final in a row, Kevin had just won the National League last year and was going for a Connacht title.
“If that was 10 or 15 years ago when we started playing, if you’d won a National League title or a Connacht title, or you’d won three Connacht titles in a row, you’d be lauded as a bit of a king.
“Now you are under pressure going into those games. Every manager, from me in Leitrim to Dessie Farrell up in Dublin, is under a significant amount of pressure. It’s just the way the world has gone.”
Despite losing to Derry in a penalty shoot-out last Saturday, Moran feels it will be the first-half display which Mayo will have most regrets over when reviewing the contest.
“I think their major disappointment will be in the first half, just not really getting going, not using our home advantage.
“The Derry boys [their fans] would admit that coming down Derry were shaky, they were there to be put out of the championship at the time.
“And we just let them get their flow, get their energy and get moving and it kept Derry in the game. Listen, once Derry got going, they showed all their class. If Mayo had their time again, I think they would have gone after Derry in the first half.
“We all suspected it was going to be a tight game and that’s the way it played out. There was a bit of mourning around Mayo all week because of the fact we are not going to get to Croke Park this year.”
Moran intends to stay on as Leitrim manager, though he is to look for more than a one-year extension when he sits down with county board officials.
“I do think the key thing for this is that it’s not a year,” he says. “It can’t be a year, it has to be a three-year term and you have to build now to make it better.
“I do feel that you make the right choices if you’re there for more than a year. If you’re there for a year, you kind of make choices just for yourself.
“Even this year in the Tailteann Cup, we were bringing on under-20s, we were developing them, where you could have just brought on an older player if you wanted to up your own kind of publicity. But if you’re bringing on the younger players then I think you’re doing the right thing for Leitrim.”
— Andy Moran was speaking in advance of the 2024 Electric Ireland All-Ireland Minor Football Championship final between Derry and Armagh in Omagh on Sunday, July 7th.
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