Source: Radio New Zealand
Max Darling of the Breakers Paul Kane
An unfortunate training incident sidelined New Zealand Breakers forward Max Darling for weeks, left him with a metal plate in his face and searching for personalised protective gear to get back on court.
After copping a teammate’s elbow in his eye and fracturing his orbital, the 25-year-old Tall Black needed a mask he could wear for the remainder of the ANBL season.
Finding something fit for purpose – and his face – on short notice was not a straightforward task.
That is where MWDesign came to the rescue.
Founder Mike Williams and his team at the Hamilton and Tauranga-based design company were on their end of year break when the request from Breakers physio Rob Knight came through.
Knight had worked with MWDesign previously and knew that the company had the tools, including a laser scanner and a 3D printer, to create what Darling needed. Even though the company was more accustomed to doing work for a diverse range of projects, from playgrounds to geothermal measuring tools to retail items for mass manufacture that get shipped globally.
Williams called the mask a “fun project” that piqued his interest and he spent three days getting it right.
Before the mask, Williams had done two designs for hands for himself and a colleague who had broken digits.
“I broke my thumb a couple of years ago and the cast that got put on meant that I couldn’t use my mouse and I couldn’t do a lot of things. The doctors will probably hate me for this, but I chopped off the fibreglass cast, scanned my hand and made myself a nice little splint that was still supportive, but I could use the mouse and I could have a shower.
“That was as close as I got to mask building for basketballers.”
An injury-hit Breakers side needed Darling on the floor to help cover the minutes that starter Sam Menennga was playing before he suffered a season-ending wrist injury.
Darling is not the first ANBL player to get back on the court wearing a facial accessory after an orbital fracture.
Keanu Pinder wore a similar mask when playing for the Perth Wildcats in 2024 after a similar injury. In the same year in the NBA, Toronto Raptors swingman Scottie Barnes also wore a ‘Batman’ mask for a orbital fracture that did not require surgery.
NZ Breakers Max Darling, Toronto Raptors Scottie Barnes, Keanu Pinder with the Perth Wildcats. Photosport
Williams had seen examples of NBA masks that he said did not look “overly special” and that Darling’s was different and custom-designed from a glass-reinforced 3D print plastic.
After a description from Knight about the injury and the areas of Darling’s face that needed to be protected, Williams used a laser scanner to scan the player’s face.
“It did a really brilliant job of capturing all that detail on his face.
“It’s actually perfectly his face, I put it on and it was uncomfortable as hell for me because I have a different shaped face, but when he puts it on, it’s like nothing’s there.”
Williams spent time trying different thickness and how it was going to sit on Darling’s face “so it didn’t look silly”.
The harness behind the head was another consideration.
“You can imagine if he’s sprinting up and down the court, you don’t want this thing bobbling around on the face. We’ve got a little sweat headband part on the inside of it too. So, when he starts to sweat under heavy load in the game, it doesn’t run down in his eyes. So, there’s quite a lot of different considerations around the design of it but from the outside I suppose it looks pretty simple.
“It’s one of those complicated things that is really straightforward if you know how.
“I hope he keeps wearing it because he looks bad ass in it, it looks real cool, I like it.”
Williams said the company had not looked into doing much work for sports previously, but were now considering it.
“It’s not a big money spinner but at least to offer the service to get people out in the game and playing again that would be pretty cool.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
