Dublin's comeback kid - 'You can't dwell on it. I never thought I would come back in again'
JOHN HETHERTON THOUGHT his Dublin days were over and that his Championship minutes in a blue jersey would total less than 30.
When Micheál Donoghue cut the six-foot-five inch forward at the start of 2023, eight years after first joining the panel, that seemed to be that.
But it turned out the man who featured just three times in the Championship, all as a sub, before 2023 was just getting started.
And when new Dublin manager Niall Ó Ceallacháin called him back for 2025, Hetherton was ready to seize the opportunity – at the age of 33.
Smashing 2-3 against Wexford on his first Championship start last April was just the start as he played in all of their games and added another goal in the landmark win over Limerick.
Speaking at the launch of the Dublin GAA jersey for 2026, father-of-two Hetherton said he thought his county career was finished after Donoghue cut him loose.
“I was on the panel every year until Micheál Donoghue came in,” said Hetherton. “I did a pre-season with him and then was let go. I wasn’t there for his first or second year and then he left to go back to Galway.
“I was disappointed because I thought I had done a decent enough pre-season. But it is what it is, it was not my decision. You are not going to get anything from moaning about it.
“I just went back with my club. They were just starting their pre-season so you get on with it. You can’t dwell on it. I never thought I would come back in again.”
Hetherton was fortunate Ó Ceallacháin was keen to think outside the box when he took on the Dublin job last winter.
Ó Ceallacháin brought former Dublin football attacker Conor McHugh in as a defender and also recalled Rian McBride and AJ Murphy.
Bringing back Hetherton and giving him game time in 12 of Dublin’s 14 competitive matches across 2025 was brave too, but it gave the team a fresh aerial outlet in attack.
“I hadn’t started a Championship game at all before this year,” said Hetherton. “I didn’t foresee it, the way things came about.”
He told wife Laura on the morning of the Wexford game that he would be making his full Championship debut but swore her to secrecy.
It wasn’t until she was walking into the ground that she broke the news to Hetherton’s Dad, Ciarán, a selector with Dublin during the Anthony Daly era.
The local lad from the nearby St Vincent’s club tore Wexford asunder in that provincial encounter and started the next four Championship games, against Antrim, Kilkenny, Galway and Kildare.
He was used as an impact sub for the All-Ireland quarter-final against Limerick and conjured a brilliant goal as Dublin pulled off a massive upset at Croke Park.
“It wasn’t a final or anything, it was just another game to progress onto the next stage of the competition,” shrugged Hetherton. “Yeah, it was a high point in the year but in the overall scheme of things, it was just another game.”
Some of the gloss from the win over Limerick was inevitably removed by the subsequent heavy All-Ireland semi-final loss to Cork.
“Yeah, definitely, we underperformed against Cork,” said Hetherton. “We know that ourselves. We were disappointed with the goals we gave away. Look, that is the way it goes. We had our day against Limerick, Cork had their day against us and Tipperary had their day against Cork in the final.”
The fact that Hetherton was chosen for media duties for the 2026 jersey launch presumably means he’s sticking around for another season?
“I don’t know,” he said, “I’ll have a chat with Niall and the lads in a few weeks when we regroup and see what the year ahead will hold for us.”
There is the small matter of child number three arriving next month. Hetherton has two boys already, aged four and one, so has his hands full.
He reckons he’s the only father on the panel and also has a busy job as a Garda too but has worked hard to get this second chance with Dublin.
What’s certain is that even if it does all end now, Hetherton will have no regrets. And not just because he finally got to live out his dream of starring in the Championship as a starter last summer.
“The way I look at it, I would have always given my best at any time I was involved,” said Hetherton, who was first called into the Dublin squad in 2015. “There were different times I was involved and there were other players who were possibly in better form, in better condition, so they slotted in. I would have just known myself that I gave it everything any time I was there and if it wasn’t good enough, it wasn’t good enough. Thankfully, in the year just gone I was able to play a role of some sort.”
Hetherton came on in the 2022 Walsh Cup final, when Dublin beat Wexford at Croke Park, and would love to get his hands on more silverware before retirement really does come his way.
“A medal of some sort,” replied Hetherton, when asked what his ambition would be if he stays on with Dublin. “Everyone plays to win. At the end of the day, if you don’t win you’re just a participant. We are no different to what other teams are looking to do – win.”
The 42
