Mayo GAA star Aidan O'Shea is in his 17th season with the senior panel. 

In an interview this week with gaa.ie, O'Shea speaks about the different dynamics involved with being the veteran on the team:

“I think it's exciting in a way, though. I think you are kind of hanging around with lads that were born in 2004, 2005 which is a bit mad.

PICTURES: Aidan O'Shea's record breaking career for Mayo

"But yeah, it's definitely an adjustment and trying to kind of find your spot in the dressing room as well and kind of understand your role.

“And in other ways, kind of how to communicate with lads that maybe, when you've soldiered with lads you can probably be a little bit more raw with them in terms of the ask and them back to you, then trying to understand players as well and how we build those relationships."

Cork hurler Patrick Horgan was quoted having recently said, it won't be the end of the world if he doesn't win an All-Ireland Final because that’s not his chief motivation for playing with Cork. How about O’Shea and his ambition to lift Sam Maguire?

“It absolutely motivates me. I also think there has to be a little bit more to it, and I think Horgan said this as well, there has to be a little bit more to why you're doing it than just the ultimate prize.

“It's definitely something that you still have ambitions to do. For me, I'm obviously playing for a long time, I think I still have a lot to offer to the group."

O'Shea explained that Mayo were in a good trajectory and that he was going to try and be a part of that for as long as he can.

Something probably had to change

The Breaffy man also gave insights into his thoughts about the new rules:

"I think there's an appreciation out there that something probably had to change a little bit in terms of the game," he says. "Definitely there's been a positive change to the game. From a spectator perspective, the games are much more easy on the eye to watch.

"I think it brings back some of the old traditions of the game in terms of the kick-out, some contests and the three-up rule obviously gives you that opportunity - not that all teams are taking it - to kick the ball a little bit more.

"There have been different criticisms and there's probably a bit of fatigue around talking about them. I think probably the criticism around it was teams just wanted the rules set in stone so we could go and trash them out and play away.

"But I think that's the key thing that happened after round five. We were all waiting for that time to just kind of go, 'Right, these are the rules for 2025 and let's go after it'. I think players and teams and managers are quite adaptable.

"Once we knew the rules, we were going to adapt to them pretty quickly anyway. As a spectacle, it's garnered a bit of interest. I think people are kind of watching games a bit more and going to them.

"Obviously seeing big swings and turn-arounds in games, that adds a bit more jeopardy because in previous years you might have a team go five or six points up and they can just sit in and they control the game."