Coleman: ‘Jon Walters nearly carried us to the Euros’
Mick McCarthy and Seamus Coleman have paid tribute in Gibraltar to Jon Walters, after the striker announced that injury has forced him to retire from football, bringing to a close an illustrious Irish career which saw him score 14 goals in 54 appearances.
“He came in (to Dublin) yesterday and let a few of us know,” said skipper Coleman. “As long we’ve both been in the squad he’s been nothing short of an example to all of us. The pride every time he has played for his country has been inspirational, to be honest. People like him will be sadly missed.”
Manager McCarthy had been given an even earlier heads-up by Walters before the player made the news public yesterday.
“He phoned me last week and sent me a message asking if he could come into training. I rang him and said ‘of course’. We had a chat then and he told me, so I’ve known for the best part of a week that he was thinking of retiring. But he doesn’t want to. He has no desire to. It’s an injury that’s forced the decision.
“I feel sad that I never had the chance to work with someone I have always admired. He was an inspirational player for Ireland and it’s sad when you lose those kind of players. And sadder still, of course, when it’s injury.”
Asked to recall stand-out moments from his teammate’s career in the green shirt, Coleman said: “He was an inspiration all around in the standards he set every day in training.
“Unfortunately, he got injured before Euro 2016 so it didn’t go as well as he would have liked but I feel like he nearly carried us there. That night he scored two against Bosnia, things like that he’ll be remembered for. As I said, Jonny was a massive inspiration and I’m sad to see him go.”
The 35-year-old was on-loan at Ipswich when he suffered a partially-ruptured Achilles tendon after coming on as a substitute in a goalless draw against Bolton in the Sky Bet Championship last September. It was thought the problem would keep him sidelined for six months but the veteran has revealed the issue has forced him into prematurely ending his career.
He wrote on Twitter: “Isn’t it ironic... my Achilles heel has literally been my Achilles heel and finished me off! I am now retired from playing football It’s been epic.”
Speaking to Virgin Media last night about his commitment to Ireland, Walters said: “I get a lot of stick because I have an English accent and was born in England but my mum was from Dublin, from Ballybough, and every time we weren’t in school, we were over in Ireland. It (playing for Ireland) was what I wanted from a very young age.”
Noting that he turned down an approach from England when he was younger, Walters said of wearing the green shirt: “From a personal point of view, it means everything. That’s the most difficult thing I will find, going through any photos or videos. I can park club football to the side, believe it or not, but the Irish side of it is one thing I will miss massively.”
Walters also slammed Roy Keane’s destructive influence on the Irish set-up, insisting the atmosphere in camp went ‘right downhill’ following the infamous WhatsApp incident. Details of Keane’s argument with Walters and abuse of Harry Arter last summer become public knowledge in September when a voice message from Stephen Ward portraying the events was leaked. Walters last night claimed that was a mild version of what actually occurred.
“You used to absolutely love meeting up, always look forward to it, but that changed for a lot of people in the last year,” Walters said.
"The atmosphere went right downhill. It was difficult, you could probably go into a lot of things, it’s not the best time to go into it but we all know that WhatsApp with Stephen has a lot to answer. That was probably a mild version of what happened. There were various things like that.”
