Bohemians’ Keith Buckley buoyed in recovery bid by cousin Conor McGregor

Bohemians captain Keith Buckley will miss Sunday’s FAI Cup final against St Patrick’s Athletic after suffering a horrific knee injury last month.

The veteran midfielder was hobbled by Mark Doyle’s challenge on October 20th and had to be replaced before half-time of the 2-0 defeat to St Pat’s at Dalymount Park. Buckley wanted to continue and attempted to play the next ball.

Two surgeries are required. First, to reattach the medial collateral ligament, which came clean off the bone. Orthopedic surgeon Mark Jackson has done that already. In December the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) will also be repaired.

Not many 31-year-old’s come back from these deep cuts, but Buckley is a safe bet to reappear. The Dubliner casually mentioned the “cousin” on Monday, as if Conor McGregor was a garden-variety mixed martial artist.

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“Funny enough, me cousin done it in a fight a couple of years ago. I have only been rewatching his documentary. I do look at him sometimes to get a bit of motivation. I have been chatting to him because, obviously, he done it. As he said, ‘it is a journey now, a process of your mind. You will find out a lot more mentally about yourself than you ever did before and how the body moves in different ways when you come back.’ He has been a help in that way. He did it himself and was able to win world titles after that.”

In 2013 McGregor tore the ACL in his left knee while grappling with Max Holloway in just his second UFC bout. He returned to the octagon inside 11 months. Within a year he had knocked out José Aldo to become featherweight world champion.

“It goes to show how strong [he is]. He continued the fight out. I don’t know if it’s in the family but I saw the ball and then tried to hop up as well. But I knew, ‘ah yeah, there’s something here’. But in my mind I was thinking, ‘I’ll be okay for the final’. But the next day I had the scan and I had a little bit of time to myself thinking, ‘f**k sake, how did that happen?’ Then I was, ‘right, there’s nothing I can do now.’”

Remarkably, he is able to simplify the recovery process. “Sometimes the mind can heal the body at the same time. You have to look at it that way. I’ve seen people who are weak mentally, and they don’t come back from these things. They give up but no, I won’t take any shortcuts.”

The McGregor angle gets a few more jabs but Buckley has no interest in milking the family connection. Still, the global superstar was keeping tabs on Bohs’ cup run: “He didn’t have to [reach out], he has other things going on. But it’s good to see, and from that side of things if I ever need anything, he can help me out and push me to certain people.”

Having lost the 2021 decider to Pat’s, the agony of missing out this time will only register on Sunday morning. Despite joking that the crutches might become weapons if the game goes against Bohs, he’s sanguine about his fate.

“What can you do, 12 years really injury free. There are people out there who have done worse, poor John Mountney done it twice in a year. Ah, I had about an hour in the hospital and that was it. Nothing you can do. Three other limbs are working. I’m healthy, I’m happy, what can you do? Sit around moping, it would be worse. You got to keep the mind healthy and happy.”

Dolye texted to apologise. Not that he needed to. “It was just a freak accident. There’s been plenty of them tackles and I have come out on the right side.”

Any hint of the skipper’s injury being used as motivation to beat St Pat’s, and secure European football next year, was also dismissed. It sounds like half the League of Ireland have been on to him.

“I was getting [so many] phone calls, you’d think I was on the way out.”