Taipans cop injury blow

Cairns coach Adam Forde is hopeful star wing Bul Kuol will be available in time for the Hungry Jack's NBL Blitz, as the former Rookie of the Year continues his recovery from a wrist injury.

Kuol suffered the injury while scrimmaging away from the Taipans side this off-season and will unfortunately miss South Sudan’s inaugural World Cup as a result.

“He’s about week three into a six-week process for rehab, we’ll get him re-scanned at the end of the month and do the timeline for his return to play then,” Forde said.

“We anticipate we’ll get a couple of minutes out of him at the Blitz, we definitely don’t want to run him into the ground like we did last year with all the minutes he played at the Blitz.

“It sucks timing wise for him because South Sudan are making history by representing their country in the World Cup and he was such a large piece of helping to get them there.”

The Taipans could also be without star guard recruit Taran Armstrong for their first NBL24 pre-season game, with the 21-year-old suffering a knee injury at pre-season training.

Armstrong says despite a small stint of time on the sidelines, it’s nothing to worry about.

“The first couple of days I got a little injury, so I’ve been out for a while,” he said. “Aside from that I’m settling in well. I’m loving being here and it’s been great so far.

“I’ll be back in a week or two, [it’s] just a little knee thing but I’m totally fine.

“Whether I play or not [the first pre-season game] will be good to get a feel for everyone and it’ll be a good learning curve either way.

“The only thing we can really hope for is we play really hard. I’m sure we will, I’m excited to see these guys playing in games and a lot of these guys are new to me.”

Cairns will open its pre-season campaign against Brisbane on August 26, and will hit the NBL24 court for the first time in Round 1 when it takes on New Zealand on Saturday, September 30.