Although it appears like the obvious question for John O’Dwyer, he says that he hasn’t allowed himself to think about it this year. In the dying seconds of last September’s breathtaking All-Ireland final against Kilkenny, he had a 97-metre free to win the Liam MacCarthy for Tipperary.
It went close and the intervention of the Hawk-Eye score detection system was sought, finally flashing “Miss”.
Speaking yesterday in Dublin at the presentation of his GAA/GPA Opel Hurler of the Month award for June, and just days after his first Munster senior medal O’Dwyer – more generally known as “Bubbles” – remains half convinced that it was over, as he did at the time, even though his team-mates were divided over it with Pádraic Maher believing it had gone wide.
“I did, and I still, think it was over. Hawk-Eye is there and I think it’s good for the game, a system like that but when you think back we could have won the league in 2014 if we’d Hawk-Eye in Semple Stadium. It was in Croke Park for an All-Ireland final and we lost.”
The rueful contrast with Tipp’s fate in last season’s league final against the same opponents related to controversy concerning Colin Fennelly, who was awarded a point for Kilkenny that replays suggested had been wide whereas Tipperary’s Noel McGrath had a shot ruled out that may have been over.
All fade into the background compared with the shot that nearly won an All-Ireland but O’Dwyer says that it has been consigned to the past when asked does he still think about it.
“No, not all,” he says. “ We lost the All-Ireland last year and I missed the free but we got a second chance and we lost the replay.
‘Any dividends’
“It would have been a lot worse if I’d missed that free and we’d lost instead of getting the draw. It’s still going to be at the back of my mind alright so I’ll look back on it in years to come but not when I’m hurling. It doesn’t really pay any dividends at the moment.
“As a team we’ve forgotten about 2014, all we’re worried about is 2015. We’ve won our first match and we’ve won a Munster title and now it’s on to step three and win an All-Ireland title.”
It’s been an explosive championship so far for the county. Playing a Limerick side that had beaten Tipp in the previous two Munster championships, Eamon O’Shea’s team recorded a thumping victory, illuminated by some exceptional scoring by O’Dwyer – which won him yesterday’s award.
Sunday’s final with Waterford wasn’t such a free-flowing affair, as the opponents – whose first defeat it was this year – deployed their now familiar defensive system operated by some outstanding backs but it culminated in Tipperary’s first title in three years.
O’Dwyer acknowledges that such systems aren’t as enjoyable for a forward as the orthodox, man-on-man tactics.
“It is very tough and when you have a full-back line of the three lads Waterford have, three serious players and then an extra man in front, you are not going to enjoy the whole game and if you get one or two chances in the game you have to take them because you aren’t going to get too many.”
There are five weeks until the All-Ireland semi-final and, for the first two, O’Dwyer will be back with his club Killenaule, mixing some football with the hurling.
He believes that the big ball relaxes him, saying that he can play a “club football game and then come back into training the week after with that kind of release and then you’re good to go again instead of being in that kind of high-performance training zone the whole time.”
