‘One eyed’ Wighton is truly out of sight
SPORT
Jack Wighton and Paul Vaughan celebrate with the trophy
JACK Wighton thought he was seeing “thousands” of Kiwis after an eye injury threatened to derail his Kangaroos debut in Wollongong.
Wighton suffered the injury in the opening stages of Australia’s 26-4 win against New Zealand on Friday night after a clash with Kiwis winger Ken Maumalo.
Wighton was left frightened and struggled with his vision throughout the match.
“I couldn’t see anything clearly,” he told News Corp.. “There were stages I was s****ing myself. Unless I closed one eye, I couldn’t see anything.
“The only way I could get proper vision was if I covered my right eye. If I tried using both, I was seeing about a thousand of everyone. I was so disoriented.
“It was scary.”
Almost every time during the first half when Wighton retreated into the defensive line he had to cover his right eye to try to see who he had to mark up on. He had plenty of animated conversations with the Kangaroos on-field trainer, who had to settle the Canberra star.
“I was losing my mind there for a bit because I was freaking out,” Wighton said. “I didn’t want to come off. I was asking how to fix it. The last thing I wanted to do was come off.
“I didn’t want to let the boys down just because I couldn’t see. After halftime it started settling a little bit.
“I was disoriented for a while. I couldn’t get my vision. I couldn’t focus or get my feet under me. It scared me. It came a little bit better towards the end of the game. I felt like I could concentrate a bit more.”
The Kiwis only took advantage of Wighton’s injury once when his Raiders teammate Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad scored after a wide scrum-play shift. Wighton said he thought they should have come after him more.
“(The eye) impacted it a bit,” Wighton said. “We were a little bit tight. A lesson learnt. I haven’t been on the right side a long time. I checked in too much on the lead and gave Charnze just a little bit too much space.
“There was a stage there when we were on the try line. I was moving and bouncing. It was all a big blur. We got lucky, a few times they went short or went back under otherwise I was going to be in trouble.”
Despite the injury Wighton finished the game.