THE HORRIFIC triple leg break suffered by Dudley Town’s Luke Morton puts football into perspective, says manager Andy Burgess.

Centre-back Morton sustained the injury 15 minutes into Saturday’s West Midlands League Premier Division game with Cradley Town at the Dell after landing awkwardly, breaking his right tibia in two places and also breaking his right fibia.

The game was halted for 40 minutes as paramedics tended to the stricken player, who underwent an operation on Monday to have a pin inserted in his leg.

Cradley scored two late goals to win the game 2-1 but Burgess was not thinking too much about the result.

He said: “When you see something like that happen it really does put the game and the result into perspective.

“It was totally innocuous, Luke jumped for the ball and when he landed there was a snap which you could hear around the ground.

“I think a couple of our lads struggled a bit playing on even though they said they would be alright.

“In terms of the game we got our pockets picked but I’m not going to be too critical.

“A few of them have already been up to see Luke and they are talking of organising a charity night for him, that’s the most important thing.

“You don’t get a penny for playing for Dudley Town, the lads give up their time and put themselves at risk to play and injuries like this can affect their livelihoods.”

Burgess was also full of praise for Cradley’s reaction to the incident and in particular striker Matt Bailey, who is a surgical theatre technician, and gave Morton first aid treatment before the ambulance arrived.

He said: “Matt was superb, he was quick to give Luke treatment and stayed with him on the pitch until the paramedics arrived.

“For an opposition player to do that I thought was really something.”

Saturday was a miserable day for Burgess as he fears he may also have lost centre-back Ross Love for the season with a suspected groin tear.

It means the Robins head into Saturday’s showdown with league-leaders Black Country Rangers with just 13 fit players, with Ben Store and Ben Stretton also missing.

Burgess added: “It looks like we lost two centre-backs on Saturday and I had a striker playing at the back for most of the game.

“We had a good run but its not ideal to be going into a game with Black Country Rangers with so many players out.”