AIDAN O’SHEA HAS hit back at those who accused him of diving to win a penalty during Mayo’s victory against Fermanagh.
O’Shea has come in for plenty of criticism in recent days as a result of an incident which saw the Mayo forward awarded a penalty after he tangled with Fermanagh’s Che Cullen late in last weekend’s All-Ireland qualifier victory for the Connacht side.
Speaking to Sky Sports yesterday following their defeat of Kildare, O’Shea firmly denied that he dived to win a penalty, which was converted by Cillian O’Connor as Mayo went on to win by five points.
“For me, unfortunately with the world of social media and everything like that, it’s going to be all over the place. The disappointing part was that we had one camera angle on the thing. The national broadcaster only brought one camera down here,” O’Shea said.
“It was disappointing that there was only one camera angle to show it. Everybody gets to see something in a flash second. My conscience is clear. I didn’t flop. I’m happy enough.
“It was probably more difficult for my family over the last couple of days. I’m just happy to be back out on the field, helping my team-mates out and getting a game under the belt.”
O’Shea added: “I just don’t think I dived. That’s the bottom line. Unfortunately I see people having a cut at me — and that’s alright, I can be judged and criticised fairly, I have no problem with that — but I just felt it was probably unfair during the week.
“Look, it’s behind me now, we won the game today.”