Julia Allan (physiotherapist) recently travelled with the Andrew Gaze Australian All Star Team to China. She kindly gives us a quick run down.
They played a 3 game series against Zhejiang Golden Bulls – a Chinese National League side in a rural town called Taizhou City and Zhejiang Province. The players did a great job with 3 close wins all within 10 points. We did have some time to visit a local temple in Taizhou which had great views of the city. However, most spare time was spent shopping in Shenzhen at the huge market where they sold good fakes of brands such as nike, rolex, etc.
A team of 10 players, with a mixture from all over Australia + 2 New Zealand players went with Andrew Gaze (Head Coach), Matt Ferris (Assistant Coach) and me as the physio.
We spent 2 nights in Shenzhen city (China) and then flew 2 hours north to a smaller city called Taizhou. We then played 3 games in Taizhou city and Zhejiang province. The training regime was hard due to the hot weather, old stadiums with no aircon and no way to keep the water etc, cold. A few sessions were cut short due to the amount of sweat from the players making the court surface dangerous.
One of the best moments of the trip was watching the entire bench and stadium go crazy when a young Australian player dunked the ball from a standing start after a rebound. It was a busy work-related trip but we did have some down time on the last night to celebrate the 3 straight wins.
- Julia Allan
