Basketball: Allen enjoying being back in old team

Former Otago Nuggets guard Hayden Allen playing for the Bombers in the Masters Games basketball...
Former Otago Nuggets guard Hayden Allen playing for the Bombers in the Masters Games basketball tournament at the Edgar Centre yesterday. Photo by Gerard O'Brien.
Almost 20 years after helping his school finish second in the country, Hayden Allen and the majority of the 1997-98 King's High School basketball team are back.

Seven members of the team - Allen, Kaine Hokianga, Matt Gillan, Steve Robinson, Mark Bracewell, Jade Shaw and Jason Frost - and a few others have formed a team for the New Zealand Masters Games.

They have called themselves the Bombers, and beat Hyperext 89-67 in their opening match of the 30 years and over section at the Edgar Centre yesterday.

Allen (36), who scored 20 points in the win, has taken a week off from his New Zealand Breakers office job in Auckland to play.

He has only a couple of aunties and uncles left in Dunedin, but was enjoying being back in his home town.

"It's great. Jason Frost was the person behind it. But I think a few of the boys had talks about doing it last November,'' he said.

"It's always good just to play hoops and hang out with the boys and just catch up after a while.''

Allen and the King's High School team finished third in the 1997 national secondary schools championships, before going one better the following year.

Robinson, Frost and Shaw still play Dunedin premier club basketball, and have helped the Bombers finish second the past two years.

Gillan has been on the winning side of both those finals with the St Kilda Saints.

Allen went on to score 1459 points in 109 games during three different stints for the Otago Nuggets in the NBL.

His most recent year with the Nuggets was in 2013, before he spent last year with the Super City Rangers.

However, the former Breakers development player and Tall Black guard said he had now retired from the national league and would play only club basketball in Auckland.

Despite the fact the Masters Games is viewed by many as being a bit of fun, Allen said his team would not be able to help its competitive juices from flowing during the three days of competition.

He expects he and his old team-mates will click as they used to in the late 1990s.

Hyperext found that out yesterday.

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