In his final injury he took a regulation outfield catch and used incredibly bad technique with the way he cupped his hands and broke his finger. It was put down to bad luck but it wasn't luck for people like me who have played cricket at a high level. You either use standard cup or reverse cup and he did neither it was idiotic. No other black cap or international player I have seen has broken a finger on a catch like that just him. When people break their fingers on a catch it is usually a caught and bowled where the ball has been smashed at the bowler at close range. He was in the outfield for a standard catch. What I don't approve of though is the NZ public laid into him and when he went to parties people would punch him on the arm and say did you break your arm shaving today Jacob? He complained about it in an interview and said people were ruthless with him.
In general if you detect a tone of accountability towards Luke for his injuries rather than writing it off as "it could happen to anyone" then that is correct I do have a tone of accountability. Turning up consistently and playing is your livelihood and an expectation. It is a skill to be an iron man like Blayke Brailey and play every game bar one for the past 5 years straight. You need to look after your body. You need to work on your flexibility through plenty of stretching and building up flexibility. Teams are getting better at this now by incorporating yoga classes which would have been seen as a pansy thing in the 1980s. I hold Luke to account and
Rocco Berry to account for their injury proneness. It is not good enough. we were counting on both of them and neither one of them ever finishes off a season. How come
Pompey can be an iron man and it is just bad luck that
Rocco gets injured. The answer is luck has nothing to do with it.
Rocco is probably so eager and the staff too eager to rush him back into line ups that his body has not knitted together from the last injury. Luke had taped up his entire leg the day he got tackled and for weeks on some break away tries he had been running ginger. But we played him anyway as we figured every one plays with niggles and then no surprise he couldn't withstand a standard NRL big shot at him. He was damaged goods going into the match and we killed the golden goose by not giving him a game or two off to get right. And he was part of those conversation and wanted to play every game. Tannah could have been used sparingly throughout the season to rest Luke every now and then but we didn't do that. It was not a fluke injury in my book for many reasons. Some reasons practical and some subtle such as not knowing how to a take a hit. To be fair to him he was blindsided and didn't see it coming so didn't brace for it. But he should have seen it coming that was naieve not to see it coming and should have braced for it. It was his fault to be hit blind.
Finally to lay all my cards on the table I have seen my cricket team mates get injured and 50% of the time while they thought it was a freak accident I could see by the way they planted their feet it was all their fault. So I have some personal bias I admit from years of seeing uncoordination lead to injury. I am an old man now but back in my day I was a cricket athlete and I trained all winter long to put myself in top shape for cricket in the summer. I did not get injuries and self care is as important as how many runs you average.