Cast your mind back to those haggard days earlier in the Championship when, in the absence of any competitive games, we all had to get het-up about what somebody said about what a Sunday Game pundit said about a player. The stand-out example is, of course, the Diarmuid Connolly, which, last time we checked, had reached Charlie Redmond Hits Out At What Jim McGuinness Said About What Jim Gavin Said About What Pat Spillane Said About Diarmuid Connolly.
But before all of this kicked off, we had Bernard Flynn's strange criticism of Aidan O'Shea. Flynn took a pop at O'Shea for taking selfies after a challenge game in Mullingar.
Meath played Mayo in a challenge game in Mullingar the week before last.
At the very end of the match the Mayo players got round in a circle and O’Shea had finished the match with the 15 that had finished. There were 15, 20 kids around and he signed autographs.
The team was in a circle ten yards away. No one asked him to leave what he was doing. Every other player was in a circle in a huddle talking; he was left outside the ring and allowed do what he wanted.
He decided then after a while to come into the ring when all the photographs were finished, which I found absolutely incredible. They did a warmdown and the same thing happened.
The whole team did a warmdown; ten yards away he proceeded to have photos and selfies and whatnot and he was allowed to do his own thing.
I stood back in amazement with a few friends of mine who watched and a certain individual who was close to the Meath team said, ‘that’s exactly why Aidan O’Shea plays the way he does’.
It was incredible to see what happened.
In response to this, James Horan said that Flynn made a "tit" of himself.
Flynn is writing about O'Shea in his Irish Daily Mirror column today, and returns to that word 'incredible', which he uses this time to express his disbelief that O'Shea was sent into Star's orbit in last weekend's All-Ireland semi-final. Given that the move probably didn't work, it's expected that Rochford won't repeat the trick.
Despite the fact that the 'selfie' criticism of O'Shea was nonsensical, Flynn makes an interesting point regarding whether the redeployment of O'Shea in the forward line could actually affect the best part of Mayo's performance at Croke Park.
The quality of ball into the full-forward line was outstanding, and one of the primary reasons Andy Moran knocked the clock back to kick 1-5. Flynn believes that O'Shea's addition here could slow up the ball into the rest of the forward line:
Something extraordinary happened on Sunday - the Mayo forwards had one of their finest displays without O'Shea up front. It's definite food for thought and has presented the Mayo management with a bad of a head scratcher.
The ball in there was quicker, the foot passing sharper, the way players were winning ball and making space for each other. The ball wasn't held up too long which can happen when Aidan gets it.
You can read Flynn's full column in the Mirror.
This very story also featured in our paper review:
Our newspaper review: Bernard Flynn takes a wee pop at Aidan O'Shea, along with some John Delaney. pic.twitter.com/hGfEYCVOuk
— Balls.ie (@ballsdotie) August 23, 2017
