A New Year holiday has arrived at the perfect time for a banged and bruised -- but triumphant -- Breakers side.
Friday night's gutsy victory over Sydney saw the Breakers hold onto top spot heading into 2015, ensuring the various aches and pains suffered in the win will be a little less prevalent during their eight-day break.
Cedric Jackson, Mika Vukona and Rhys Carter all missed major minutes after sustaining injuries in Sydney but, in a display of the fortitude coursing through the team, all three made it back to help the Breakers close out the win.
These were hardly insignificant knocks, either. Jackson slipped and landed heavily on his shooting wrist, appearing in some pain and spending the rest of the first half applying ice to the joint.
Vukona copped an elbow to the eye while attempting to pressure a Cody Ellis shot, with the blow drawing blood and leaving the captain in need of stitches above his eyebrow.
And Carter suffered a sickening dislocation after jamming his finger, seeing the bone pierce through the skin and seeing the guard require an overnight stay in the hospital -- after he played another 11 minutes.
Of the trio, there were no concerns over Vukona, with assistant coach Paul Henare describing the damage as a "healthy gash". Jackson's wrist would be monitored before the Breakers' next game, in Adelaide on January 4, while it was too soon to tell of any lingering effects of Carter's injury.
But, given all three players recovered enough to contribute to the win, the main after-effect of what turned into a war of attrition will likely be a galvanising effect within the club.
"It was awesome to see each of those guys come back into the game after what they went through," Henare said. "It's one of those signs of toughness and character."
That character enabled the Breakers to close out a Kings side attempting to come back from a big first-half deficit and upset their short-handed opposition. Combined with a heavy defeat in Cairns last week, a loss would have made their break bittersweet, but now the Breakers are set for the second half of the season.
"It's a tough time of year to play and we didn't play well [in Sydney] last time," Henare said. "You could go on and on about the motivating factors, and then the adversity that we had to deal with during the game, with several guys going down injured.
"It was huge. We wanted to check this one off, we wanted to finish the year off well and now, with the eight-day break, we're obviously going to need that time to make sure we're locked in and ready to go against Adelaide."
NZME.
