“His vision is extremely blurry” – Leigh coach provides update on Ryan Brierley’s horrific eye injury
Ryan Brierley is struggling with his vision after suffering a nasty eye injury but is getting better each day, according to Leigh caretaker coach Kurt Haggerty.
The Centurions half-back suffered the eye injury in last Thursday’s 48-18 defeat at Leeds, and underwent surgery on it the following day.
Thank you @GMProjects2017 for the emergency eye procedure this morning, don’t know what we’d have done 😩 you’re a star ❤️ pic.twitter.com/84CGNfYdWS
— Ryan Brierley (@RyanBrierley) July 2, 2021
Haggerty says Brierley is struggling with his vision at the moment but continues to get better as each day goes by, although no timeframe has been put on his return.
“They don’t look great the photos,” said Haggerty. “It is probably the first day I’ve seen Ryan with his eye slightly open today.
“He has been struggling with his vision. It is the first day today where his eye has been open a little bit but he is really struggling for him to see out of it. His vision is extremely blurry.
“It is a slice just on the inside of his eye so it is affecting his vision and the cut has made his eye swell over it so he is really struggling to see. We are not too sure on the timeframe of him being out yet.
“He has been around the place and he is getting better each day. We are just being very cautious with it and what he can do.”
Leigh travel to Hull on Sunday afternoon as they seek their first win of the season, and the Centurions could welcome back prop Adam Sidlow from a lengthy injury lay-off.
“We’ve lost James Bell who will face a suspension this week,” Haggerty added.
“We could possibly have Adam Sidlow back this week and Keanan Brand has had 80 minutes under his belt so that will help him too.”
Haggerty says he has seen signs of improvement in the Centurions since he took over the head coaching duties, and believes their first win isn’t far away.
“I’d like to think I’ve brought in an intensity to our training sessions that is replicating game speed and game intensity,” he said. “I think once that starts complimenting things on the field then we will really start seeing the benefits of it.
“It’s never going to happen overnight, things have changed quickly for us in positive light in offence, but I knew things weren’t going to change overnight.
“Every week I say to the players our first win is coming regardless of who we are playing. We are under no illusions that we’ve had a tough start and we’ve had bodies down but so has everybody else. We’ll keep fighting, we’ll keep going.”