Aidan O’Shea was delighted to finally get his hands on the Sam Maguire after Mayo’s sensational victory over Kerry.

An unused sub, the veteran Breaffy clubman had experienced more than his fair share of All-Ireland heartbreak before yesterday’s long-awaited success.

“To quote Rory McIlroy, what will we talk about next year? It’s an unbelievable feeling. It was hard to watch at times, but the boys were just outstanding,” he said.

“Is there any other sporting odyssey left? I’m waiting for somebody to come in and say, ‘Oh, actually, something’s gone wrong here and we’ve to take this away’. [The cup] is in the middle of the room there and it’s an amazing feeling.

“Just buzzing for all the boys, the young fellas in particular and the boys, they’ve put in a huge amount of shift. They’ve taken a lot of flak over the last couple of years. Delighted for them to get the performance they got today.”

O’Shea acknowledged that it was a great day for all Mayo people after 75 years of hurt.

“It’s genuinely not about me. This is all about that group there, Mayo people. When we came in all those years ago, we were all about trying to drive and change the narrative about Mayo people and Mayo football,” he continued.

“We did that to a certain extent but we never got over the line. It’s something that I was hellbent on doing when I was a young fella growing up. I wanted it to be different, I wanted us to be taken seriously as a football county. I knew All-Irelands would come.

“Whether I’d be in the room or not, I didn’t know. It’s not like this is out of the blue, we’ve had decent players over the years and come up short in big games. I knew that it was going to happen.

"Obviously, it’s taken a long time but we can talk about something different now: Mayo are All-Ireland champions 2026 - can never take that away.”

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