Ex-Falkirk Fury pair set for the Commonwealth Games

The 3×3 basketball will feature in the Commonwealth Games for the first time, after taking the Tokyo 2020 Olympics by storm last year.

In a historic move, 3×3 wheelchair basketball will be the first wheelchair basketball discipline to have featured in the Games.

With only half a court and just one hoop for both teams to attack, gaining possession and using it well is the key to the 3x3 format.

The more familiar 5×5 version of the game has been contested twice at the Games, both at Melbourne 2006 and Gold Coast 2018, where Scotland’s men finished an impressive fourth with Bunyan and Malcolm featuring in that 2018 Scotland side that narrowly lost out to New Zealand for the bronze medal spot.

The team also defeated rivals England en route to that third place medal match.

Pro Glasgow Rocks team-mates Bunyan and Malcolm are both from Falkirk, starting their basketball with Fury and both having also played in the USA and been in Great Britain squads.

Both Scotland’s men and women secured qualification for the Games earlier this year during a Home Nations qualifying tournament at the Sportscotland National Training Centre in Inverclyde.

The Scots went unbeaten with both teams securing victories over Northern Ireland in the finals, the men’s side running out a comfortable 21-5 win, while the women’s quartet dominated 21-13.

The Men’s Scotland basketball team fly to Ireland this weekend and then move on to Amsterdam to take part in 3×3 tournaments prior to the start of the Games at the end of this month.

Fury head coach John Bunyan was on the Scotland coaching staff in 2006, with older son Keith playing, alongside three other Fury players - Mark Duncan, Scott Russell and Stuart MacKay - when the team finished sixth overall.

Fury has a tremendous record in producing players for the Scotland men's team in the Commonwealth Games with two other former players - Kieron Achara and Ali Fraser - being important members of the Scotland basketball squad in 2018.