Basketball: Tall Blacks follow rules

Casey Frank

A claim by Australian men's coach Brian Goorjian that the composition of the Tall Blacks flouts Commonwealth Games rules was yesterday rejected by New Zealand officials.

Goorjian has labelled the New Zealand team "foreign legionnaires" for the inclusion of five players born outside New Zealand.

But Basketball New Zealand said only two of those players were naturalised New Zealanders - American-born Casey Frank and Ed Book.

The others - Mika Vukona (born in Fiji), Lindsay Tait (Sydney) and Aaron Olson (Victoria, Canada) - were all New Zealanders through parentage.

Basketball New Zealand high performance head coach Lindsay King also said the Commonwealth Games tournament was not being staged under the rules of world governing body Fiba.

Those rules permit teams to have only one naturalised player.

New Zealand Olympic Committee spokesman Gordon Irving said all the proper channels had been followed in the selection of the Tall Blacks.

A spokesman for the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games organising committee said it was not holding an inquiry, indicating satisfaction with the New Zealand playing roster.

Australia and New Zealand are expected to meet in the basketball final in Melbourne and Goorjian expressed bewilderment over the make-up of the Tall Blacks.

"I thought we were playing by Fiba rules but obviously I'm mistaken," he told the Australian newspaper.

"The rules are very clear. I don't understand how they can name a team with two American-born players, an Aussie, a Canadian and Fijian."

Goorjian said the decision to bring back captain Pero Cameron from Turkey indicated that New Zealand had targeted winning the Commonwealth Games gold medal as a high priority.

The Tall Blacks will meet Barbados, South Africa and England in pool play.

The Boomers are in the other half of the draw with Nigeria, Scotland and India.

- NZPA