Ailing Campbell Vows To Play On Through The Pain Barrier
Illawarra Mercury
Saturday December 15, 2007
WOLLONGONG captain Mat Campbell will ignore an ongoing Achilles injury to take on the Kings tomorrow night in Sydney.
Campbell missed seven games with the injury before making a rusty return a fortnight ago against Gold Coast.The 13th-year veteran was also quiet in the first half of the duel with Singapore last week before lighting up with 15 second-half points to trigger a 93-72 victory. But until he takes a long break, Campbell is resigned to playing in pain for the rest of the season."I'll be playing," the former Australian Boomers guard said."I was hoping I might've turned the corner, but to be honest there's not a day that there's no pain in it."Basically, when it happened I was told it was an 8-10 week injury, but I tried to come back after two weeks and that set me back. I took more time off and came back for the Gold Coast game but I wasn't ready, and now it's pretty much a week to week proposition. "I really want to play out the season, but I might have to start managing it a bit differently," he added.Campbell said the Hawks were doing their best to block out the club's financial woes."Professional sport is a tough industry and you always hear things are tight, but that's been said for years," he said."It's out of our control as players, but to all of a sudden be sat in a room and hear that this time it's for real, that the future of the club is really up in the air, that this time we really could be done, it was a bit of a shock."Having a young team, the concentration for us has got to be on improving. "First and foremost, we're a basketball team, and we play to improve and win night in, night out," he said.
© 2007 Illawarra Mercury