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100 not out as Mayo's O'Shea makes GAA history

Aidan O'Shea says "the appetite is definitely there" after becoming Gaelic Football's first ever outfield championship centurion.

The Mayo stalwart made his 100th championship appearance as a second-half substitute, as his county survived a late Monaghan fightback to secure a 1-24 to 2-20 All-Ireland SFC first round win at Clones.

The Breaffy club-man is on a run of 89 consecutive championship matches in the green and red, missing only the 2012 Connacht semi-final against Leitrim, after making his debut all the way back in 2009.

"Right now it doesn't really mean a whole pile but obviously, it's a lot of games. When you start dividing up the number of championship games you play in a year, it's a long time," O'Shea told BBC Sport NI.

",My kind of ethos is I always to try and be available as best I can. The one I missed really still annoys me a little bit, the Leitrim game. I was probably just about right to get in the squad and James (Horan) decided to hold me back.

"As I tell young fellas coming in, be available. You never know when your chance will come knocking and then you've got to grab it. So look, delighted to make 100 appearances.

"I've still a long way to go to catch Stephen Cluxton and I think Murph (Michael Murphy) hit 90 last week. So there's plenty of ways of racking them up now in the new structure, so they'll surpass me pretty quickly as well.

"But yeah it's probably a nice thing to look back on in years to come."

Despite trawling for the Mayo cause for 17 years, O'Shea is adamant that his appetite is not wavering, if anything it's getting stronger.

" I suppose it's more acute now, isn't it, when you're at the other end of the career," O'Shea continued.

"I appreciate these even more. I think the appetite is definitely there and obviously disappointed not to start and no doubt I'll be back on the pitch during the week trying to get my place back and that's still happening, I'm 35 now and 36 next month."

The victory means the Connacht county progress to Round 2A and are potentially just one win away from a return to Croke Park and sealing their place in the quarter-final of the All-Ireland.

"Ultimately we just had to win and it gives us that opportunity now to go and put ourselves 70 minutes away from a quarter-final and that's the way we've got to look at it.

"We haven't been in Croke Park for a few years so we need to really kind of get ourselves together over the next couple of weeks and give ourselves a right crack at it."

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