Glory keeper breaks silence

Perth Glory goalkeeper Jason Petkovic has spoken publicly for the first time about the sickening collision which left him with a broken leg, revealing a decision on his playing future would not be made any time soon.

Petkovic suffered a double-break to his left leg in round nine when he slid in to collect a loose ball in the Glory's box and collided with team-mate Simon Colosimo and Central Coast's Damian Mori.

Surgery undertaken three weeks ago to insert a pin in his left leg was a success, but doctors have given a time-frame of up to four months for the bone to heal, at which point a leg brace can be removed.

Petkovic is contracted to Perth until the end of the 2007/08 season, but the 33-year-old refused to speculate about his future, saying a decision would be left for at least another three months to wait for his bone to heal and further assessment.

"As far as the doctors are concerned it's not a career-ending injury," Petkovic said.

"(But) obviously there are other factors are involved - psychologically whether I want to play…but the reality is I haven't thought about that yet."

"It just comes down to me, how well I heal up. If there's no problems then I'd certainly try to start playing again because it's not the way I wanted to finish my career, but this is how things work out sometimes."

"The focus at the moment is getting myself better and once I get to the stage where I can say 'right, can I play or can't I play?' then I will say yes or no whether I want to continue. I've got a bit of time up my sleeve before I make that sort of decision."

Petkovic, who is close friends with Mori, said he held no animosity towards the Mariner over the incident, describing it as an unfortunate accident.

"I've played that tackle over and over in my mind thinking could I have gone another way to prevent this happening, but the reality is I would have done it that way again. That's the way the ball came and that's the way he (Mori) came in," he said.

"I know that Damian or Simon wouldn't have maliciously tried to hurt me so I can't blame them ... it's just one of those situations where I got caught in between the two of them and I'm the one that ended up the worse for wear."

Original article can be found here.

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