Mark Allen

Mark Allen had an extraordinary career in the mid to late 1990s. He was one of the country’s most recognisable players in this period and his folk hero status spread well beyond Taranaki.

With a shaven head and and an ability to burst into the open with the speed of the loose forward he had once been Allen stood out on the field and became a crowd favourite. For a while, indeed, Rugby Park in New Plymouth was known as “the Bull Ring”, in honour of his nickname which crowds began to chant whenever he made one of his characteristic runs.

Allen even had a biography published on his behalf and off the field he was highly marketable with his pleasant, cheerful manner and readiness to chat with the media.

Yet Allen as a loosehead prop had only a modest international career and was always an understudy in any All Black selection. Of his eight test appearances he started only in one, against England late in 1997 and only because the regular first choice loosehead prop at that time, Craig Dowd, was injured.

Allen entered the Taranaki representative team in 1988 but did not make his All Black debut until 1993 when he went on as a blood-bin susbtitute against Samoa at Eden Park. He toured Scotland and England later that year but played in none of the tests.

In 1994, with Richard Loe back from suspension, Allen missed making the All Black squad and Loe, Dowd and Olo Brown were chosen ahead of him for the World Cup in 1995. He regained his place in the All Blacks for the 1995 end of year tour of France and Italy but again played in none of the tests, with Brown, Dowd and Loe preferred.

In 1996, having become a popular captain of the Hurricanes in the Super 12, he remained in the All Black squad but while Loe had gone by then Allen always found himself ranked behind Brown and Dowd. But he made each of the tours of 1996 and 1997 to respectively South Africa and Wales, Ireland and England.

In 1997 Allen, having moved to Manawatu and linking up with University club, captained the Central Vikings in the first of their two seasons in the national championship second division. But his career came to a sudden halt in the 1998 Super 12 when he suffered a serious back injury leading the Hurricanes against the ACT Brumbies.

That forced Allen out of first class rugby and his only role with the game from then on was as a TV comments man, especially on the Heartland programme which concentrated on the NPC second and third divisions.