He doesn’t know where yet, and it certainly won’t be the Super Bowl, but Aidan O’Shea is on his way to the USA to try his hand at American Football.
It won’t be a permanent move, at least not in the short term and the move is part of AIB’s #TheToughest support for the GAA Club Championship and the documentary they are producing following the experience of sports stars swapping codes to see how they measure up.
Brendan Maher is just back from Australia where he tried his hand at Cricket and the other names coming this way will be revealed in the coming weeks. The documentary will be aired on an as yet unnamed channel in the run up to the AIB All Ireland Club Finals on March 17th. Sport for Business understands that there may well be a change from last year’s broadcaster TV3 and that it will be a positive move for the sport and the brand.
O’Shea is travelling out after playing against Dublin in the second round of the Allianz National League and will be back in time for Round 3. He is going with the blessing and indeed encouragement of new Mayo manager Stephen Rochford, who may have had some influence on his selection as a branch manager with AIB in Castlerea.
“I’ve not had a chance to take too many holiday from work,” said O’Shea yesterday. “There’s a few days built up and I’ll be taking those to do this challenge.”
That’s not likely to be a main consideration of the pro football star that will be trading places with O’Shea but his work as a production planner in a local pharmaceutical company is important in the amateur world of gaelic games.
“I was more of a basketball fan when I was younger but I was at the Giants and the Jets in New York this season and it will be some experience to play the game on the pitch as opposed to in the stands or on the TV.”
“We don’t know much about what I’ll be doing yet but maybe a tight end like Rob Gronkowski at the Patriots would suit.”
“Whatever I do I’ll be going from being one of the big guys in gaelic football to being just a little guy in this.”
He might be hoping that his kicking skills could put him in more of a special teams role as a punter or kicker which would involve less physical battering but Mayo fans will be assured that he will be taken care of.
The NFL season will have just finished after Super Bowl 50 in SanFrancisco so it’s likely he will be trying out at Spring Camp training with a College team, maybe even Boston College who will be part of the College Football Classic taking place in Dublin this September and likely to be one of the stand-alone highlights of the year from a sporting and a business perspective.
It will also be a boost for the thriving local American Football scene here in Ireland where 18 teams will take part in two divisions of the Irish National League in 2016.
