'What do you want, a hug and a kiss?' - 'Bubbles' O'Dwyer wasn't expecting call from Tipp boss Cahill
CONTENT: John O'Dwyer is happy with his decision to return from intercounty hurling. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Freshly retired John 'Bubbles' O'Dwyer has admitted he probably wouldn't have returned to the Tipperary hurling panel this year even if he had been asked back.
The two-time All-Ireland winner announced his inter-county retirement last week though he said he made the decision long ago and only went public because he was 'sick of people asking'.
In a wide ranging interview on The 2 Johnnies Podcast, in which he also talks about receiving 'brutal' hate mail after a red card during the 2016 Championship, and his belief that his 'Hawk-Eye' point in the 2014 All-Ireland was actually a score, O'Dwyer said he's content with his decision.
And the gifted attacker revealed that while he didn't receive any phone call from new Tipp boss Liam Cahill, it didn't bother him as he didn't expect 'a hug and a kiss'.
O'Dwyer wasn't part of Tipp's Championship panel last season as he left the group earlier in the year to concentrate on overcoming an injury.
"What do you want, a hug and a kiss?" said O'Dwyer when asked if he expected a call from Cahill about being overlooked for 2023. "At inter-county level, that's just the cutthroat business of it, isn't it? That's just the way it goes, you have to move on. Everyone moves on.
"I had enough of it anyway. Even last year, when I stepped away last year... I went in and gave it a go and was trying but couldn't get injuries right. I remember coming out from training one night and I was walking out with Seamie (Callanan) and 'Bonner' (Maher) and I was actually happy walking out. I said it to the lads there and then, I made the decision, I said, 'Lads, I won't be back'. I said, 'I can't do it anymore'. When you stop enjoying it, that's when you know you need to go."
O'Dwyer, still just 31, clarified that he was writing 2022 off at that stage but hadn't shut the door on 2023 if asked back. Pushed on whether he would have come back if invited, he said: "I don't think I would have went in, no. I think my time...it's a hard one to answer. But I think my time was done and I had enough of it."
On the poison letters he received to his family home after being red carded in the 2016 Munster semi-final defeat of Limerick, O'Dwyer said his mother tried to shield him from them at the time.
"The mother opened them, she wouldn't let me read them," he said. "Lads abusing you. Fair enough, lads doing it on Twitter or whatever you want to do, but sending letters to your house. I kind of used that. I got hold of one of the letters and it was absolutely brutal stuff that was in it. Whatever about going in on you but going in on your family, going in on your uncle, whatever, cousins, just mental."
Pushed on what was in the letters specifically, O'Dwyer revealed the personal insults.
"People saying you're nothing but a f***ing c***, and you shouldn't be wearing a Tipp jersey, all this sort of stuff."
O'Dwyer felt it was ironic that months later, after using one swear word during an emotion-filled interview immediately after winning the All-Ireland, he was forced to issue an apology.
"And then I say 'f***ing' in an interview and there's war over it," he commented.
O'Dwyer scored goals in Tipp's All-Ireland final defeats of Kilkenny in 2016 and 2019. He would have been the matchwinner in 2014 too but Hawk-Eye ruled that his late long-range free against the Cats was wide, necessitating a replay which Kilkenny won.
"I'd still be adamant that it was over," he said. "Oh I would, oh yeah, 100 percent."
O'Dwyer said colleague Padraic Maher told him he felt it was wide while goalkeeper Darren Gleeson commented that 'the wind always goes left to right when you're striking into that end', to which O'Dwyer responded: 'It's no f***ing good telling me now, Darren'.
'Bubbles' also revealed the colourful origin of his nickname.
"When I was born, I was born with a massive head of hair, hair arms, hairy legs, the whole lot," he smiled. "The mother was just after popping me out and says, 'Jaysus, he looks like Michael Jackson's monkey', who was called 'Bubbles'. So it stuck since then."
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