'I had enough of it anyway,' said Bubbles O'Dwyer in tell-all podcast interview

Recently retired and now former Tipperary hurler 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 by new manager Liam Cahill.

In a intimate and tell-all interview on The 2 Johnnies Podcast, O'Dwyer spoke about receiving 'brutal' hate mail after a red card during the 2016 Championship, and the gifted Killenaule man 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 jokingly. 

"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."

When asked 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."