Basketball: New Zealand Breakers out of second straight NBL game due to Covid-19

The Breakers are next set to play on Boxing Day. Photo / Photosport

A Covid-19 outbreak has forced the New Zealand Breakers out of another fixture.

After having to postpone their scheduled clash against the Perth Wildcats on Friday, the club have now been bumped from their upcoming match against the Brisbane Bullets on Wednesday. The Bullets will now play the South East Melbourne Phoenix, with the NBL working with clubs and relevant stakeholders on further schedule changes.

Speaking to Newstalk ZB, Breakers general manager Simon Edwards said the virus hadn’t spread beyond the initial seven members of the squad as the team moved quickly to address it.

“By all accounts they are doing better, which is good, but we can’t get back into training until after the seven-day time period,” Edwards said.

“In terms of what the club’s gone through and everything, it doesn’t compare. But at this present moment, it is a logistical challenge and it is a headache, but player welfare and the importance of the players is the number one priority in situations like this.”

The postponed match will add to the scheduling headache for the Breakers at the back end of the season. As noted by head coach Mody Moar earlier in the week, the club have a busy run in the second half of the season.

As they did with the postponed game against Perth, the Breakers assessed all possible avenues to make Wednesday night’s game happen, but were ultimately unable to.

“We went through the same process here in terms of looking if we could get some Covid replacement players; different players are getting out of isolation at different times, could we make it work? But player safety is number one and, yes, they’ll be negative and have done the week’s isolation, however coming back from Covid isn’t like you or I just going to work and tapping away on the computer. These guys are elite athletes and the safety of them has to be number one.”

It should be the last match on the team’s schedule that could be impacted by the current situation. While the back end of their schedule is busy, December was relatively open for them.

The Breakers’ next match will be their Boxing Day clash against the Tasmania JackJumpers in Hobart, and Edwards was confident his team would be taking to the court for that one, which would see them travel across the Tasman on Christmas Day.

“Right now, with all the information that I have, there’s no reason why it wouldn’t go ahead. We will have all our players back; the chief medical officer of the NBL and our team doctor have both agreed that will be an adequate amount of time to get back.

“Obviously, there’s a caveat there that we will still have the right number of people including injuries and if there’s any further Covid cases, but at this present time, the 26th is definitely going ahead.”