Aliyah Dunn

Dunn was born and raised in Invercargill.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} She is of Māori and Samoan descent.^[2][3][7][8] She is a distant cousin of Te Amo Amaru-Tibble. They had never met before becoming 2021 Central Pulse team mates. However, they found out they are related through Dunn's Southland-based grandmother, who was originally a Tibble with Ngāti Porou family connections.^[9] Dunn also has Whakatōhea, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa and Te Whānau-ā-Apanui affiliations.^[10] Both of Dunn's parents played representative basketball for Southland. Her father, Terrence, also played for Southland Sharks. Aliyah's four siblings have all played basketball at a representative level. In her youth, Dunn played both representative netball and basketball.^[11][12][13] She attended Te Wharekura o Arowhenua and Verdon College.^{[11][12][14][15][16]}

Dunn was a fringe member of the 2017 Southern Steel team, making two appearances as Steel won the inaugural ANZ Premiership title.^{[5][6][17][18]} She began the season playing for Netball South, Southern Steel's reserve team, in the Beko Netball League.^{[13][16][17][19][20][21]} On 30 April she made her ANZ Premiership debut for Steel in a 66–46 win against Northern Mystics. Dunn replaced Jhaniele Fowler-Reid with two minutes left in the fourth quarter.^[22] On 14 June, after four Steel players were injured in a road traffic accident, Dunn was one of four Netball South players called up to the Steel team for a 51–46 win against Mainland Tactix.^[17][23]

Ahead of the 2018 season, Dunn signed for Central Pulse.^[24][25][26] Dunn was subsequently a prominent member of the Pulse teams that won the 2019, 2020 and 2022 ANZ Premiership titles.^{[14][27][28][29]} In 2018 she landed 524 goals from 577 attempts with a 91% accuracy. Only Lenize Potgieter was more accurate.^[4][7] Dunn finished the 2019, 2020 and 2021 seasons as the most accurate New Zealand shooter in the league with 92%, 91% and 90% returns, respectively.^{[2][30][31][32][33]} In 2022 Dunn was the ANZ Premiership's leading goal-scorer, landing 618 out of 664 with 93% accuracy.^[28][30] Between 2018 and 2022, Dunn played and scored in four grand finals for Pulse.^{[34][35][36][37][38][39]} At the end of the 2022 season, Dunn announced she was leaving Pulse.^[28][29]

Ahead of the 2023 season, Dunn signed for Mainland Tactix.^[40][41][42]

Dunn was a member of the New Zealand team that won the 2017 Netball World Youth Cup.^{[5][15][16][17][43][44]} She made her senior debut for New Zealand on 18 September 2018 against South Africa during the September 2018 Netball Quad Series.^[4][45] In October 2018 she featured for New Zealand in the 2018 Constellation Cup^[46][47][48] and was a member of the Fast5 Ferns team that won the 2018 Fast5 Netball World Series.^{[10][49][50][51][52]} Despite her impressive scoring stats with Central Pulse and been called up for training squads, Dunn was not included in the 2019 Netball World Cup or 2022 Commonwealth Games squads.^{[14][53][54][55]}

Tournaments	Place
2017 Netball World Youth Cup[5][15][16][17][43][44]
2018 Netball Quad Series (September)[4][45][56]	3rd
2018 Constellation Cup[46][47][48]
2018 Fast5 Netball World Series[10][49][50][51][52]
2022 Fast5 Netball World Series[57][58][59]

	Grand finals	Team	Place	Opponent	Goals (%)
1	2018[34]	Central Pulse	Runners up	Southern Steel	32/35 (91%)
2	2019[35]	Central Pulse	Winners	Northern Stars	40/43 (93%)
3	2020[36]	Central Pulse	Winners	Mainland Tactix	28/30 (93%)
4	2022[37][38][39]	Central Pulse	Winners	Northern Stars	44/47 (94%)

Season	Team	G/A	GA	RB	CPR	FD	IC	DF	PN	TO	MP
2017	Steel	1/2 (50%)									2[18]
2018	Pulse	524/577 (91%)	?	0	0	?	2	2	30	62	16
2019	Pulse	521/565 (92%)	17	0	0	24	0	8	46	76	16
2020	Pulse	340/372 (91%)	20	0	0	23	3	6	19	49	14
2021	Pulse	539/601 (90%)	28	0	0	46	2	10	31	62	15
2022	Pulse	618/664 (93%)	?	0	0	34	1	12	15	57	16
2023	Tactix
Career

Sources:^[30][60]