Breakers worried by rising injury toll
IT’S the injuries, not the early run of defeats, that concern new Breakers head coach Paul Henare after a faltering start to the preseason.
The Breakers were swept 3-0 by Andrej Lemanis’ Brisbane Bullets in their Aussie NBL preseason series which concluded in Invercargill yesterday with an 86-77 victory for the visitors.
The Breakers finished their internal tour with Corey Webster (back and hip soreness) and Kirk Penney (calf strain) both sitting out the finale, Tom Abercrombie only able to go the first minute after hurting his back in the warmup and import point guard Ben Woodside withdrawn at halftime with a heel problem.
The only bright side of that equation was the fact that 2.15m centre Alex Pledger was able to see his first action of the series, experiencing no issues with his quad injury in 17 minutes of activity (eight points, three rebounds).
Henare had no problems with the lack of a win from the three outings.
‘‘This week was never about results, and the pre-season is never about results,’’ he said.
‘‘You don’t want to let that losing attitude slip in, but we’ve stayed focused on what we’ve tried to achieve each game and tried to have some improvement across the week.
‘‘Though I would have liked a little more improvement in certain areas we have come together well as a team.’’
But Henare admitted the injuries were an issue with just the three games in the official preseason tournament in Brisbane next Friday, Sunday and Monday to come before the October 7 regular season tipoff against Melbourne United.
‘‘It’s a big concern,’’ Henare said.
‘‘We need everybody on deck, and we haven’t had everybody on deck yet. It’s a little frustrating, but you can’t do anything about it. We’ll just have to deal with it as best we can.’’
All the afflictions are considered relatively minor, though Abercrombie’s back problem had yet to be fully diagnosed.