INJURED Cat George Burbury has undergone surgery to repair a broken jaw he sustained in a sickening clash in Wednesday night’s NAB clash against Collingwood.
Burbury suffered breaks to both sides of his jaw when he collided with Magpies skipper Nick Maxwell.
Despite initial fears that the 21-year-old Tasmanian had also lost some teeth in the incident, scans showed that all his teeth are intact.
“It looked terrible, but from what we can gather it’s not going to be anywhere near as bad as it looked,” Cats football manager Neil Balme told the Geelong Cats website.
“He hasn’t lost any teeth, so that’s a real bonus.
“He’s a bit too courageous for his own good. We love to see that sort of attitude, but it’s a pretty high price to pay for it.
“So we’re hoping he’ll be right and back relatively soon.”
Burbury had plates inserted to hold the broken bones in place.
“It’s a relatively simple thing to fix, I think, compared to what it looked like,” Balme said.
“It was like a car crash at one stage.
“He should be a lot more comfortable tomorrow, and hopefully he’ll return to footy reasonably soon.
“But let’s just see how (the surgery) goes tonight, so we know everything is safe and fine.”
Although Balme was speaking before the surgery had taken place, he was confident that Burbury could be back playing in six weeks, the Cats site reported.
“It’s a bit dangerous to say anything now, because until he has the surgery we won’t know, but we’re relatively positive about it,” he said.
Burbury was expected to travel home to Tasmania for the early stages of his recovery.
