Wellington Phoenix head coach Giancarlo Italiano has revealed he feared Tim Payne suffered a foot fracture in a training incident ahead of Saturday’s clash with Newcastle Jets, before the defender played the entirety of the 2-1 win.
The New Zealand international was initially ruled out of the Round 10 fixture on Friday after succumbing to the foot injury in Wellington’s Thursday training session – but Payne was surprisingly included in Italiano’s starting XI to take on the Jets and played from start to finish as the Phoenix ended their three-game losing run at Sky Stadium.
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In his post-game press conference, Italiano was asked to explain Payne’s surprise recovery and revealed that, on initial inspection of the injury, he feared the defender had suffered a fracture and would miss six to eight weeks as a result.
“For me, that was probably the highlight of the day,” Italiano said.
“Yesterday – I can show you photos – we suspected a fracture. Knock on wood nothing eventuated today. I had planned without him for today, then we had a fitness test in the morning, he said that he was okay and the physio gave me the thumbs up, which was great.
“Knowing Payney, when he says he wants to play, I know he can play. He played and he played 90 – which was great. If you see the injury he received that led to his foot injury, it was a pretty bad injury.
“For me, that’s a good sign of leadership from a senior player. When things are hard, he still wanted to play and contribute.”
Italiano then elaborated on how Payne suffered the foot injury in training on Thursday.
“He went up for a challenge with a player, the player ran by accident his studs down the back of his leg… then when he landed, he landed on the corner of his foot so that blew up.
“We suspected it might’ve been a fracture, but he just got through it.
“I actually thought it was going to be six weeks, to be fair. I’m always a pessimist, so six-to-eight weeks. But I was really happy, the one thing I was kind of contemplating today was plaing him, and the risk that there was longer-term damage.
“But I was pretty buoyed by the fact my physio gave me the assurance he’d be alright.”
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