Hull FC's Brad Dwyer returns to Headingley tonight believing he never deserved the Leeds Rhinos axe - but insisting he’s no axe to grind.
The diminutive hooker spent five years with the West Yorkshire club, scoring 34 tries in 120 games and helping them win the Challenge Cup in 2020. He was a regular last season, too, until being surprisingly dropped for Leeds’ play-offs campaign and missing a Grand Final appearance. Dwyer, who’d already agreed to join Hull for 2023, was left out as Rhinos boss Rohan Smith opted to start with defensively solid Jarrod O’Connor at No9 and use captain and England hopeful Kruise Leeming off the bench.
The ex-Warrington rake makes a swift return to Headingley in only the second game of the new campaign and he maintains he holds no grudges. Dwyer said: “It’ll be enjoyable as I always love playing at Headingley. It’s a great place to play, especially on a Friday night and I’m looking forward to catching up with a few people I've not seen for a while. It will be nice to get back.
“But I don’t really look back at what happened. The fact I was moving to a new club and the need to want to come in and impress here was fully on my mind. Maybe another time I will look back. I felt like I deserved to be on that (Leeds) team. I felt like I was certainly offering something to that squad that contributed to get them into those situations. But they went and won two play-off games without me so if I’d have played they might not have won those. You never really know.
“But I certainly feel I’d proven enough and out of anyone was doing his job off the bench and if needed to was changing games from there or certainly that. But there were also certain things I could have changed and done better myself to take that decision out of Rohan’s hands. So I have to look at myself first. And also its rugby league. There’s 30-odd players all wanting to get in. Rohan’s goal would always have been to get to a Grand Final and win a Grand Final.
“If they’d have won that last game he’d have been a genius as I’d have contributed to us getting to those play-offs and then Jarrod was outstanding for us. He did a really good job starting off at nine, steadied our defence and gave a lot of balance so it helped Seze (Aidan Sezer) and Blake (Austin) play. It’s just what it is. It’s a new season and a new club and I’m just focusing on that.”
Asked if there’s anything Smith pinpointed exactly what he wanted him to do differently, Dwyer said: “I think Jarrod was nailed on out of all three of us. I had no qualms with that. Jarrod was doing really good. The shape I was in I had some issues with my back which hindered me fitness-wise- and I really struggled to play big minutes at the level I wanted to play. There was a certain point in the year where I drew a line in it and said if I am going to offer some limited minutes it’s going to be high impact and I certainly felt I did that. The thing that I might have lacked was some of my defence wasn’t as strong as it could have been. But coming off the bench, which I’d done for the majority of that time where we had to win the majority of those ten games to get into the play-offs, I'd had some really big impacts and out of anyone I was happy I was doing my job. I think it just fell down to there were three people and there could only be two playing.”
Dwyer, 29, started on his Hull debut against Castleford last week helping them build up a 32-6 lead before eventually being pegged back to 32-30. He made an instant impression early on with one of his trademark dummy-half breaks which set up Liam Sutcliffe who’s also joined the Black and Whites from Rhinos and makes his first return to Headingley tonight.
Dwyer said: “To get off to winning ways on debut is all you can ask for and in front of a bumper crowd of 15,000 as well was great. That fan base is one of the big reasons I signed at Hull. The second half could have gone better obviously but I enjoyed it. I keep telling everyone that I only signed here as Sutty needed someone babysitting him. And I've given him his first try on a plate as well so he owes me! I got pretty close with Sutty in our time at Leeds and then for us both to be moving over here it was just a nice moment for us both on debut. That’s in the past now though and we’re looking forward to the big one this week.”
Leeds were dismal in their opening game getting walloped 42-10 at Warrington. But Dwyer said: “Was it Leeds were bad or Warrington were really great? We saw with our match that momentum is massive in the game at the moment with just how quick it is. As soon as you get momentum, it’s really big and Warrington certainly got that against Leeds. And I’m sure that was a response to the season they had last year. They’d have been raring to go and get a first impression out there.
“Leeds have quality players throughout the team so we’re not looking too much into the result last week. We know we have things to fix up ourselves and hopefully we can deliver on Friday.”
And he certainly loves playing at Headingley where he famously once scored an unlikely 40m drop goal to beat Castleford in golden point extra-time four years ago.
On his favourite moments, Dwyer said: “That drop goal would probably be it. That and the Rob Burrow and Jamie Jones-Buchanan testimonial. I've played in a couple of finals but I don't think anything can come close to that in terms of the whole build-up to the game and it just shows what a great club it is. The amount of occasions you end up playing at Headingley without reaching finals just shows what a great club it is and a great place to play.
“Hopefully Friday’s another great occasion and we come outon the right side of it.”
