Mayo manager Stephen Rochford praised Aidan O'Shea after his side progressed to the All-Ireland final after beating Kerry at Croke Park on Saturday.
It finished 2-16 to 0-17 and speaking to Off the Ball's Nathan Murphy after the match, Rochford said: "We came up here knowing that Kerry would certainly be better than they were the last day and we knew we needed to be better to nudge across the line slightly ahead of the form team of this year in the National League and Munster champions so I suppose that's satisfying but it's only part of a job done."
The Mayo management came in for a lost of criticism after the first match when they decided to drop Aidan O'Shea into full-back to mark Kerry's Keiran Donaghy. Speaking about the decision, he said: "I have to be careful in my language because I don't want to upset the experts. We don't pick the team to seek approval or disapproval from journalists or commentators or analysts.
"They're there to give an opinion no more than ours and we would feel that ours would be a little more educated on the basis that we're within the walls of McHale Park and we're testing things out and we're seeing the guys at close quarters.
Mayo's Aidan O’Shea amd Kieran Donaghy of Kerry. Image: ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne
"Look, it was always going to be a big call. We didn't see it really as that big a call but look, I'm really happy for Aidan because he sacrificed his normal game for the sake of the team and it just shows how much a team player he is, how much a leader he is within the group.
"When we spoke to him a few weeks ago about the role, to a second there was no 'leave that with me' or anything. It was like 'I'm up for that job' and I think what you saw today is that he learned a lot from the first game and I think that was understandable. I thought he had a fine game.
"Aidan is an extremely smart footballer. I mean there's nobody in our squad that watches the tape back as much and analyses his own performance to where he can go better, where the team can go better, where we can work on our kick-outs and all that sort of stuff.
"We were never advertising him for the All-Star full-back role, he was in there to do a job."
The full post-match interview can be heard here:
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