GEELONG youngster George Burbury underwent surgery on Thursday evening to repair the broken jaw he suffered in the NAB Challenge opener against Collingwood on Wednesday night.

Scans on Thursday morning revealed that Burbury suffered breaks on both sides of his jaw when he collided with Magpies skipper Nick Maxwell.

Despite initial fears that the 21-year-old Tasmanian had also lost some teeth in the incident, scans showed that all his teeth are intact.



"It looked terrible, but from what we can gather it's not going to be anywhere near as bad as it looked," Cats football manager Neil Balme said.

"He hasn't lost any teeth, so that's a real bonus.

"He's a bit too courageous for his own good. We love to see that sort of attitude, but it's a pretty high price to pay for it.

"So we're hoping he'll be right and back relatively soon."

Burbury had plates inserted to hold the broken bones in place.

"It's a relatively simple thing to fix, I think, compared to what it looked like," Balme said.

"It was like a car crash at one stage.

"He should be a lot more comfortable tomorrow, and hopefully he'll return to footy reasonably soon.

"But let's just see how (the surgery) goes tonight, so we know everything is safe and fine."

Although Balme was speaking before the surgery had taken place, he was confident that Burbury could be back playing in six weeks.

"It's a bit dangerous to say anything now, because until he has the surgery we won't know, but we're relatively positive about it," he said.
Burbury is likely to head home to Tasmania for the early stages of his recovery.


His teammates are tipping him to continue with his ultra-courageous style of play when he returns.

"Unfortunately he came unstuck last night, but we wouldn't want him to change a thing," All Australian defender Andrew Mackie said.

"That’s the reason why he's on our list and going to be playing league footy for us.

"The way he played last night is no different to a Tuesday morning training session for George. That's the way he goes about it.

"At times, on a Tuesday morning down at training, it's not exactly what you need when you're playing on him.

"But we're a better team for having standards like that."

Geelong's other injury concern from Wednesday night, midfielder Jesse Stringer, is likely to be grounded for only a couple of days.
Stringer felt hamstring tightness during the warm-up.

Having been named as one of the Cats' subs, and with extended benches in play during the pre-season competition, the club decided not to risk him at all.

"We just don't want him to do it properly," Balme explained. "He got sore through the warm-up and he thought it was okay.

"If it had've been a fair dinkum game we might've been able to get something out of him.

"Because it was a practice game and he was a bit sore, we thought we'd take him out altogether.

"I think he can run tomorrow – not full bore, he'll have to settle it – but I think he'll be available for the next game."

Stringer was an absentee from the Cats' Australia Post Community Camp, which began in Colac on Thursday afternoon.

Jimmy Bartel, who hurt his elbow during the clash with the Magpies, and Jackson Thurlow, who suffered a corked thigh at training earlier in the week, were also absent.

Geelong has a 16-day break before playing Melbourne in Alice Springs on Friday, February 28.