Thought you'd be sitting by the radio Thomas waiting for the ABC to run another interview with Scott Derwin about the Blaze?

Well you just never know when you will get a scoop like you did this morning I guess. Your timing was sensational to hear Scotty Derwin announcing the Blaze were safe - almost 8 hours before the official announcement which said nothing of the sort.

and its Mike now is it, I find it a bit hard to keep up with your alias roundabout, hence I think I'll just stick with Thomas.

Spain will win easily, unless they are going to be playing some sort of mind games...

So long as its not a thrashing I am pretty happy... under 15 is great

I hate reading the pessimism...were yet to see Australia challenge so were yet to see how they will handle it!!!!!!

Ive hated watching the Boomers not challenge since 1992 on any regular basis, so excuse my realistic approach to the facts of the state of the sport in this country. Throw Bogut in and everything is different, but without him, dont expect anything to amazing.

not challenge since 1992?????????? i HAVE TO STRONGLY DISAGREE THERE! Add to the fact that we beat silver medalists croatia to get through to the medal rounds in 96, and came 4th in 2000... id say we did challenging for a good 8 years after then! and also... as for challenging i believe last olympics we smashed russia and lithuania, 2 teams at the top end of world teams who were suppose to comfurtably beat us. Q@hy does everyone get behind the soccerross because they had one notable close loss yet the Boomers routinely show spirit against the best teams and there just snubbed off??????

If Spain are even half serious (highly unlikey given it's Australia) they'll win by 30+

^ thats sheer crap! weve beaten some highly talented teams and we have taken it to the line with some of the best... i think some people are pessimistic for the fun of it.

I am not sure what this looks like to you, but watch all of the clips, looks like Australia taking it right up to Argentina to me... whats your excuse? that aregnetina was sleep walking? get a grip mate


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmri_tw-tro

Lol I think its amazing, now that gorjians gone hes seen as a god when he was here all anyone wanted to do was ridicule.... But hey, 2 words.. Luke Kendall... that makes all ridicule of gorj atleast somewhat just... then again not sure what other guards we really had that couldve taken his place, seems back then we were lighter on guards then we are now.

the 2008 team was just unlucky to start off shit, they ended the pool round right on form and the americans werent taking them lightly at all on the strength of there preseason game and there latter performances///

having said that, I have hope for this team... theyve been toegther a while now, they know eachothers games, there experienced yet young, and p[robably would be the fittest team out there as planned.. I like to be an optomixt... we could win 4 and lose 1, or win 1 and lose 4.. and everything in between... when it comes to the Boomers, it all comes down to the night, Ive seen games where theyve trashed lithuania and games where they lose to new zealand!

Live Link http://www.thefirstrow.eu/watch/131008/1/watch-spain-vs-australia.html

TIED AT HALF TIME!!!!!!!


Btw... Australia hasntb been playing that great and looked sloppy so to even be in itmright now is an achievement

i was hoping there were some others watching this, Pau is causing us trouble and we also are struggling with our D rebounding.

Our swings are going well! Ingles has hit a couple of shots and Newly brings good energy and helps w boards and gets to reciever spots nicely, had a flush to finish the half. Wish maric wasnt in foul trouble, and that we had Jawai he would really take up some space inside.

Mills and Delly have been good so far.

We've played only man but Spain have mixed it up a little with some extended 1-2-2 or 1-3-1 to eat shot clock and have played a little zone.

Hope Brett Brown can keep the rotations going alright and we can have a good 2nd half, the had the mic in his timeout earlier and he was struggling.

The canary yellow is hideous! That's right I said canary yellow, what else could you call it!

Mills, Newly, Ingles, Andersen and Baynes start second. Tempo is quickening, not sure if thats good for us or not.

Coach Brown draws up a simple play and when Baynes asks which screen do I set his response is "just play"!

Were up 2 half way through third quarter!

7 point run by boomers

Spain resorting to outside jumpers for last few minutes, we have managed to clean up our defensive rebounding and its helping.

Were getting out on the run too, go Aussie! Fairly good performance to this point. Spain look a little uninterested but who cares, would be a great confidence builder.

yes, the boards have been cleaned up and were not lookin too bad apart from the occasional unco lapse

great fullcourt trap!

Alright! Spanish coach gets angry at his charges and tells them to get to the basket and we come out a trap and turn em over! Calderon gets T'd up! Were about to see if we can hang with the big boys.

Aussies may just win this game! Gasol is on fire showing his class

Well down 1 at end of third, a little flop and O foul call took some momentum away but you have to deal with that! If we can hit a few jumpers, maintain our rebounding improvement and stop them from pounding it inside then we have a good shot at this one! PUMPED!!! This could be a great win.

Newely!!! Beasting

I like that Baynes tried to dunk on Ibaka! He missed but still!

you can definitely see why gasols in the NBA though

So Baynes missed a dunk on Ibaka that would have put us up 6 with 8 to go. We ended up with 3 OR and got nothing there, it hurt us bad.

They went on a run with fast breaks and a lob to Ibaka for a layin and Coach Brown was late with his timeout and were now down 6 with 4.30 to go.

Worthy sucks undersized and doesn't do anything why isn't Neilson on?

True that Phil... I wasnt sure how the game would go before I saw it but I am far more confident now about the Boomers at the moment. We played a pretty average game really.. not great, not terrible. yet there we are 6 points within world number 2 Spain... thats gotta give ya some optomism? say what ya want about hiding ceretain set plays or strategies or whatever, when 2 teams get on the court they wanna win... and I think we are hiding things just as they are... lets face it Maric didnt see a minute in the second half and he couldve made a difference .. some idiotic passes and some quickfire shots didnt help our case... but overall I am optomistic at the moment they just need to clean a few things up. But having said that tis is teh first REAL competiion theyve had, AND IT DOESNT COME ANY REALER THEN SPAIN! so... I think they handled it considerably well.. there wouldve been things the Boomers got use to getting away with that they couldnt Vs Spain this may cause them to lift in future

what happened to maric? did he get injured? he didn't come on after the 5 min mark in the first quarter.

When we really needed scores we had nothing, we jacked up crap when Spain made their run which put Mills in a position to have to force it.

We settled for jumpers and it hurt.

His freethrow percentage maybe?

I also wanna reiterate on this comment someone made

"If Spain are even half serious (highly unlikey given it's Australia) they'll win by 30+"

Hmmmm... scoreboard says NO!

if we don't find an answer for gasol. we're done.

and I have to say, there was alot of messy sloppyness through the game... alot of half baked passes and ill conceived shots, and we still were so close... we mustve been doing a few things right?

Does anyone know if it's possible to catch a replay online or fox?

"if we dont beat gasol, were done"


well funny that because we let gasol do what he wanted and almost won? SO MANY NAY SAYERS AND HATERS!!

If we bet team USA it would be like "yeah but Kevin durant took 10 minutes on the bench"

be proud of a good game FFS

Does anyone know the rules re injury replacements for olympic teams? Is there like a cutoff date for when you are allowed to replace a player? And I'm guessing you can't replace a player if injury occurs during games?

Credible effort from Australia, certainly not the 30 point thrashing some predicted.

Um, you do realise Marc Gasol (all-star NBA centre) didn't even play and two of their best players in Navarro & Calderon played like 10-15 minutes each?

It was a very good effort by us sure but if they were even half serious about the result it would've been 30-40 points.

Gasol was the difference in this game. If we don't find an answer for him we're most likely done. Hard to see Anderson containing him for long stretches but he's not unstoppable. This game actually gives me more perspective on where we are at the moment and I believe we're close to getting shit together. Our defensive pressure was top shelf and our offensive sets ran like clockwork until the final moments. We lost our momentum when Brown rotated subs which probably cost us the game in the end but you can't fault him for rotating in a friendly.
Honestly I thought we were the ones going to struggle with the defensive pressure but it was completely opposite, it just highlights the fact that European teams struggle against speed and defending quick transition movement. It will interesting to see against Brazil who could probably match our speed.
Very positive performance in the end but it will be difficult for them to do it again tonight sadly, this would be the time where they feel jet lagged hard after a 38 hour flight schedule but yeah anything can happen. prediction 84-83 Aus win on the buzzer.

"our offensive sets ran like clockwork"

I thought there were moments of good but a lot of stagnant play. Not a great system for our team but its the one they know so hopefully they can get a few wins in London with some more good shooting nights like last night.

We didn't have Bogut and Maric for most of the game seriously anon where does it end?

We don't even get pumped by the US by that much. Stop trolling.

What like China just beating Tunisia by around 30, do you actually have any sort of clue what you're talking about?

To indulge Mystro's NZ comment above, Australia does have the added struggle of a crowded sports market draining athletes from basketball, AFL being a topical example lately.

I'd be interested to know, in NZ's case, if you're a talented athlete say 6'5 or above, who mightn't necessarily be suited to rugby union, what is the number one sport you'd choose? I'd guess bball but I might be wrong. Similarly in Spain's case beyond soccer I'd imagine bball would be the primary choice of sport.

Also NZ's lack of depth does allow for greater development at a national level of the existing talent they have

I'm pretty sure basketball is the #1 sport in Lithuania too where as here it's behind aussie rules, rugby league, union, cricket, soccer, tennis and maybe even golf.