Dylan Windler to return from shin soreness for Perth Wildcats but raft of NBL injuries is worrying John Rillie

Perth Wildcats coach John Rillie is keen to get to the bottom of why so many of the NBL’s stars are missing games due to injury in a bid to uncover why a core group of his players have been forced to miss matches this season. The Wildcats will get back import Dylan Windler from shin soreness for Thursday night’s game against Tasmania JackJumpers at RAC Arena, but will still be without superstar Bryce Cotton as he recovers from a rib injury. Perth have had their entire team available for just two games all season, and Cotton broke down in the opening minutes of one of those. Rillie said it was important to understand why his team’s injuries are occurring, but with a host of big names missing games throughout the league, he feels it is a wider trend that needs to be addressed. “What I’m more curious about it is if you look across the league, there are a lot of high-level performers that are missing games early in the season,” Rillie said. “Every team is dealing with what we’re dealing with what we’re dealing with. That’s where I look to see how can we be different so it doesn’t happen to us. “You try to do as much research and see how other people go about their day-to-day, week-to-week and pre-season, then you have to make subtle changes. Those changes might not be today or tomorrow because you have to be game enough to go away from the herd. “But I am very mindful that across the league, a lot of high-level players are missing due to injury. I do think there is something there. What it is, I’m not sure.” The Wildcats have battled for consistency this season which was evidenced by them dominating Illawarra on Friday night at RAC Arena and then getting thrashed by South East Melbourne Phoenix on Sunday. The JackJumpers beat Perth during overtime earlier in the season but have lost five of their six matches since that clash and were held to just 60 points during a 28-point loss against Sydney Kings on Sunday. Rillie is expecting a difficult match-up. “They’re the defending champions,” Rillie said. “They’re not playing at the level that they’d want to be playing so I’m expecting it to be a scrappy dogfight type of game. In a way, kind of like us, they’re just battling through some things. “Will Magnay didn’t play for them in the last game. We’re all dealing with our own problems. We have to worry about us more than we have to worry about Tassie. If we come out with the spunk that we played with at RAC last time, we are a very good team.”