A new Australian NBL season is suddenly upon us - one where the Breakers are hoping to return to their great heights.
But they'll have to start it without their captain Tom Abercrombie who is lucky he can still actually see out of his left eye after a preseason incident against Brisbane.
“I didn't think it was bad, I've been poked in the eye plenty worse than that,” Abercrombie told 1News.
“But I was sitting there and the top quadrant of my vision I couldn't see anything, it was like a curtain there which I knew wasn't quite right.
“But I just kept thinking it was going to go away.”
It didn't.
“Had it reached the centre of that field of vision then I probably wouldn't have got full vision back.”
Abercrombie's been lying on his side for the best part of a week since and has had surgery for a torn retina which involved putting a small gas bubble in his eye.
The bubble means he can't fly for at least seven weeks but there’s hope he could play home games before then.
“That bubble should halve in size in about three weeks so I'm hoping by that stage I should be able to do something.”
In the meantime, he’ll have to watch from the sidelines as the Breakers open their season against Melbourne United this weekend – probably lying on his side.
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