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Mayo have the experience to beat Tipperary - Seamus O'Shea

As Mayo prepare for an All-Ireland semi against Tipp, midfielder Seamus O’Shea reflects with Andy Watters on their narrow victory over the Ulster champions

Mayo's Seamus O'Shea battles for the ball with Tyrone's Sean Cavanagh during last weekend's All-Ireland SFC quarter-final 
Mayo's Seamus O'Shea battles for the ball with Tyrone's Sean Cavanagh during last weekend's All-Ireland SFC quarter-final  Mayo's Seamus O'Shea battles for the ball with Tyrone's Sean Cavanagh during last weekend's All-Ireland SFC quarter-final 

THERE was a lot talk about ‘sledging’ in newspapers, TV studios and chatrooms after Tyrone’s All-Ireland quarter-final against Mayo, but Seamus O’Shea says he wasn’t aware of it on the field.

The Breaffy clubman, a virtual ever-present for Mayo for almost a decade, says he “didn’t take any heed” of verbal exchanges at Croke Park last Sunday when the westerners saw off Tyrone by a point: “I remember seeing that incident with Aidan [O’Shea, his brother] alright” said the burly midfielder.

“That was the only time I took any notice of it. It doesn’t happen around the middle of the field too much anyway. They don’t say it to me, I’m not considered one of the top players, so they don’t bother! I didn’t take any notice to he honest. It was only afterwards, when I saw people talking about it, that I took any notice.”

O’Shea’s brother Aidan gave a man of the match against last Sunday after countering all of Tyrone’s attempts to restrict his impact on the game: “To be fair to Aidan he doesn’t react to it - he’s six foot four and if he throws an arm or something like that he is probably going to be sent off because he is a big man, it’s fairly obvious,” said O’Shea.

“He is cute enough to know he can’t react, he just has to keep his head down. He’s too important to the team to react to that kind of stuff. It’s just something he knows is going to happen and he just gets on with it.”

While Tyrone were never at their best last Sunday, Mayo’s win proved that they remain realistic Sam Maguire contenders. However, O’Shea has been around too long to get carried away by a quarter-final victory - particularly since the Red Hands missed four scoring chances in the closing stages.

“That’s the perception [that it was a great victory] because we won,” he said.

“But they could have scored a couple of points at the end and then people would have been saying we were useless. The outcome dictates the narrative in these situations. They could easily have won, it was a really tight game and we happened to be ahead at the end.

“I think we played well and I think we deserved to win but it was a tight game and we didn’t exactly set the world alight. But it was a satisfying win because we had been struggling throughout the summer and we knew we needed some kind of decent performance to beat Tyrone because they’re a top team and it was good to get over that one.”

The win against Tyrone last Sunday saw Mayo through to their fifth All-Ireland semi-final on-the-trot. The side has had three different managerial combinations in the last three seasons: long-serving James Horan stepped down after losing a semi-final replay to Kerry in 2013 and Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes bowed out in the wake of defeat to Dublin at the same stage last season.

They were succeeded by Stephen Rochford who included former Armagh star and Crossmaglen manager Tony McEntee in his backroom team: “Tony Mac is a good guy,” said O’Shea.

“He is obviously very experienced with Armagh and Crossmaglen and he has brought some new ideas. He is just kind of a good fella to have around the place in terms of knocking opinions off, whatever, yeah he’s a good fella too have.”

O’Shea says McEntee has been able to develop the long-ball tactic that proved to be a useful tool against Tyrone last Sunday: “We have done that before,” he pointed out.

“We played Aidan at full-forward last year and we probably did something similar against Donegal last year, the way we set up. But certainly he does bring that kind of an angle that he’d have that bit more experience of it maybe than others would.”