Ah here mild criticism ? I canât think of any other gaa player who has got such personal abuse over the years from the likes of joe brolly and online keyboard warriors which had little to do with football.
John small broke a players jaw in an all Ireland semi final and got less stick than oshea for underperformances
I think mayoâs failure to win an all ireland in those years was more down to the players they didnât have. Kobe, Ryan o D and Darragh Beirne. Ryan o D was there in 2021 but was only a pup.
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What wild abuse did he get?
He has an avalanche of defenders in the media who are consitently getting outraged when he is criticised. The most unique person in the GAA where criticism is not fair game for him.
Dairmuid Connolly, Tiernan McCann, Ryan McMenamin etc have received far worse abuse in recent years with nobody outside their county ever really standing up for them.
Brolly goes over the top in his criticism of everyone. I didnât hear many coming to the aid of McGeeney when he levelled some utterly wild criticisms of him and said that Armagh players wouldnât play because he was in charge.
They had Keegan, Boyle, Andy Moran, Higgins, Doherty, McLoughlin, Parsons, Seamus OâShea, Barrett etc who were all top players at the time.
They just couldnât get over the line against a great Dublin team and came up so short so often. I remember those games well and the performances of the likes of Keegan, Boyle, Moran, Higgins etc in those games. OâShea and OâConnor consistently let those games pass them by, they were way off it and thatâs where the criticism comes from. There were a few unlikeable characters in that Mayo team that came up short. I didnât like Colm Boyle for instance - I thought he was dirty, sneaky and had one of those faces youâd like to slap - but he was a superb player and a real leader.
Whatever about OâShea and OâConnor not being likeable is one thing but the fact both were so overrated and consistently underperformed in big games when them showing up to the level they were paraded at might have been the difference.
Its very unfair to say he cost mayo all irelands. Was it not his some of his team mates who were much lesser players and couldnât score to save their lives.
Apologies that was @Domhnach_Cearnach comment about COC elbows
Aido would never refuse a Hollywood shot he hadnât a hope of making. The one in injury time in the 2016 drawn final and one on the second half of 2017 after Keeganâs goal are two that spring to mind.
OâConnorâs equalising point in 2016 and his equalising point at 1-16 each late in the 2017 final are two of the most clutch scores Iâve ever seen. Iâd have fierce time for OâConnor as a player. He was sort of toerag that makes the game.
The thing about that Mayo team - unlike this one - is they had bags of personality and identifiable characters, vastly contrasting characters. And so did Dublin. I never thought weâd get a rivalry like that again where the personalities of the players and the personality driven clashes between the players - you knew the personal rivalries - would be so integral to the whole thing. But we did. But we will never get that again.
This Mayo team is faceless, like the characters in the video for If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next by the Manic Street Preachers.
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Why is it so unfair. They were drawing finals and losing them by the minimum from winning positions. They just never delivered in an All Ireland final in multiple appearances. I would say OâConnor performed to a higher level than OâShea in those games and Iâd also say OâConnor got the most out of his abilities but I just believe he was a fairly limited player at that level and his lack of pace, ball winning abilities and movement was not was needed for a marquee forward in an All Ireland winning team.
If you watched him live youâd see he didnât like making runs for the ball, he looked for the easy scores.
He also hadnât developed a left foot.
Ive read brollys articles in the sindo for years. Colm o rourke has an article every Sunday too. O rourke always mentioned mayos lack of scoring forwards and lack of composure but didnât go for personal abuse
Brolly went to the personal insults , losers, bottlers, etc. And that wasnât the worst of it.
Why would o shea deserve stick like connolly and mcmenamin who were dirty players on occasion?
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Not enough class in the forwards. This years team had o Donoghue, Beirne and Kobe. I think its as simple as that. Horan and Rochfordâs teams were hugely admirable all the same
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So OâShea wasnât unique in getting criticism? The difference is everytime OâShea got criticised he had an army of cheerleaders outside of his county defending poor Aidan.
Compare and contrast the reaction to OâShea cheating to send Fermanagh out of the Championship to Tiernan McCann cheating to have Darren Hughes sent off.
OâShea has special status category in the GAA. He is not to be criticised and any criticism of him is totally wrong. Other GAA players do not get that same protections. The cheating with OâShea wasnât an isolated incident either, he made a rather shameless dive to try and get Paschal McConnell sent off in an All Ireland semi final too.
Thereâs bad losers, then thereâs bad winners, but the bitter winner goes to the top of the pile!
I wonder if Dublin had made the final, would Mayo have beaten them? 
This seems backwards to me. OâShea is the most pilloried player Iâve seen. Unfairly in my view.
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Who in the GAA media/punditry/journalist circle has pilliored him? The only two I can recall is Joe Brolly who has esvicerated an unquantifiable amount of GAA figures and Bernard Flynn.
He gets a lot of criticism from fans due to his inability to perform on the big stage and his ridiculous propaganda machine from GAA media circles.
Exhibit A.
That auction
