Injury Blow: Captain Out For Up To Six Weeks

Breakers captain Tom Abercrombie admits he is ‘gutted’ to be out injured for up to six weeks with a side strain.

The 34-year-old hobbled off the court after barely two minutes in the pre-season game against the Sydney Kings in Melbourne on Thursday night.

The Breakers won 97-93 to register their first win at The Blitz but at a high cost because the inspirational leader’s next couple of weeks look uncertain.

“The prognosis they said is four to six weeks, but the physio and the doctor haven’t seen anything like this before,” says Abercrombie.

“So there’s not a whole lot for them to go off in terms of recovery times, so it’s going to be one of those ones where you wait and see how it pulls up.”

The freak injury happened when he was chasing through a handoff and clipped hips with another player.

Abercrombie says the medical staff have not seen an injury like this before.

He admits the injury is disruptive to the team, but he is trying to look for some positives.

“While it’s unfortunate it has happened in pre-season, we haven’t started the season yet. We’ve got two more pre-season games to work on rotations, and next man up will be ready to step up and play well,” he says.

Sky Sport is showing the Breakers game against SEM Phoenix in Melbourne live at 7.30pm (NZ-Time) on Saturday night.

The team then rounds off pre-season with a trip to Wollongong to face the Illawarra Hawks on Thursday.