By Paul Keane

The Allianz Football League table rarely lies though All Star forward Aidan O'Shea believes that in Mayo's case it fails to tell the full story of their campaign so far.

The five-in-a-row Connacht champions slipped to their fourth defeat in five Division I outings on Sunday, losing to Kerry in Castlebar.

It has left them with crucial ties against Roscommon, where they must travel to, and Down, in the final round, and they probably need to win both to avoid the drop.

O'Shea agreed that they can't drop any more points from here but noted that with two-point defeats to both Dublin and Donegal, there has been plenty of positives to take from the campaign also.

"Taking the Cork game in isolation when we were terrible, apart from that we've put ourselves in a decent position in most games and we've just failed to grab the momentum at the right time," said O'Shea. "The Donegal game was the perfect example, we had the momentum after the penalty and then conceded a bad goal and then failed to wrestle back the momentum again.

"The Dublin game was a bad auld night and it could have gone either way, we missed chances at key moments. Against Kerry, we should have been in a better position at half-time and then after that it was tit-for-tat and they got a goal that really stung us.

"Look, it's out of our control really now. I haven't looked at it in great detail but we have no choice but to win our two games. Monaghan or Cork above us will have to lose a game for us to stay up I think.

"It is what it is, we've no choice but to win the next two games. It's Roscommon up next and they've been very, very good, top scorers in the league I'd say and it's a local derby.

"Hopefully all of that focuses our minds but we'll have to up our consistency if we are going to get a win."

Aside from the obvious blow of demotion to the second tier, it would be a setback in Mayo's first season under new boss Stephen Rochford while they would also hate to relinquish their proud, long standing record of being a Division I team.

"You don't want to go down because next year I could be answering questions about what relevance does playing in Division II have when you are trying to win the All-Ireland," said O'Shea. "Obviously you want to stay up. For Mayo, we have been a Division I team for a long time so I wouldn't like to be part of a team that goes down. So it has a relevance, definitely it has a relevance when we are playing Roscommon next.

"I can tell you that 100 per cent I would prefer to stay in Division I. But look, our performance levels haven't been perfect, admittedly, but they never are in the league, win, lose or draw. We have just fallen on the wrong side of a few results, which is a pity."

O'Shea, a powerful presence in Mayo's attack, was speaking ahead of tonight's airing of 'The Toughest Trade' TV documentary, an AIB backed programme chronicling his recent code switch with American Football player Roberto Wallace.

"The thing that jumped out at me compared to our own game is obviously the stop-start nature of their game but moreso the complete and utter explosiveness of the game, just no wasted energy," said O'Shea.

"I might be starting a run on a line and I think I might have started quite well and they are like, 'no, forget about it, you were too slow getting off the mark'. Or I might have left my foot behind me, there was just no wasted movement whatsoever because time is everything in their game so that was the stand out thing for me, no wasted movement at all."

O'Shea visited Padraig Carney, a member of Mayo's last All-Ireland winning team in 1951, while in the US.

"That was cool," said O'Shea. "He's obviously a bit of a legend and he's been a high achiever over there as well in his own right. So it was a special moment to get to do it.

"He's still mad into it. In his house, he's got a basement and it's just all Mayo! All his pictures from playing for Mayo, all his medals. He's got GAAGO set up and he watches it and rings Paddy Prendergast and praises the players or gives out about them, anything any normal GAA guy does. So he's still mad keen into it and it was good to see."

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