“You can break my nose, but you’ll never take my Freedom.”
This may or may not be what Kerry footballer Peter Crowley shouted after he ran into team-mate Johnny Buckley’s “hard forehead”.
The training ground collision left Crowley with a badly broken nose and meant he played no part in the Kingdom’s Munster final saunter past Tipperary.
The Laune Rangers clubman could not breathe properly and needed corrective surgery on the fracture after the accidental altercation with his college mate and best friend Buckley.
It left Buckley looking like a Scot who had come off the worst after an encounter with the forces of Longshanks.
“Johnny Buckley has got a hard forehead,” said Crowley.
“It was over here [pointing at spot to side of nose], it was like a scene out of Braveheart the boys were telling me, I could have been an extra out of Braveheart so it wasn’t great.
“Johnny Buckley is like my best friend. I lived with him for four years in college.
“He came off with a tiny little scar. Ah, it was just bad.
“It’s good now. I got an operation on the Monday after the Munster final so that settled it down as well.”
Having tried to defy his affected breathing to line out against Tipperary at Fitzgerald Stadium, Crowley insists he will be fit for Kerry’s All-Ireland quarter-final against the winner of either Clare-Roscommon or Tipperary-Derry on July 31st.
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