Nacewa plays through pain barrier

ISA NACEWA may have played the closing minutes of Leinster’s game with a broken arm last Friday but he was by no means the first sportsman to push through that pain barrier.

Such stories are littered throughout the sporting landscape. Wigan Athletic striker Jason Roberts played for 63 minutes with a broken leg against Reading in 2005 in a game which sealed the club’s promotion to the Premiership.

Dietmar Hamann played the 2005 Champions League final for Liverpool with a broken foot while Seattle Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck played the last eight games of the 2005 NFL season with two broken fingers.

The most famous example however was Manchester City’s German goalkeeper Bert Trautmann who played the last 15 minutes of the 1956 FA Cup final with a broken neck sustained in a challenge with Birmingham City’s Peter Murphy.

Like Trautmann, Nacewa didn’t realise the extent of the damage at first and managed to kick a drop goal and make a tackle after suffering the break in the closing minutes of the Magners League win over the Ospreys.

”I don’t think he was aware of it,” said his coach Michael Cheika. “Even when he was walking off the field, he was just holding his arm and he said to me, ‘I think I’ve broken my arm’.

“He was pretty relaxed for someone who had broken his arm. Whether it was the adrenaline that kept him going I don’t know, but that last tackle wouldn’t have helped him when that guy ran at him because it was right in that area.”