At my age? I wish!

I don't think you can really fluke winning a basketball tournament. And I think the term you're looking for is a "Bradbury".

Is it a perfect outcome? In a way, yes. It's our first-ever medal, and we did it without our starting center in Baynes and the "best" Aussie player in Simmons.

Would I prefer gold? Yeah I would. I don't think there would be any niggling question for me as to whether the team deserved that if we had beaten USA and then got to the gold medal game. And for 20 minutes of our semi final that looked like something we might actually do.

But there's a feeling of vidication to this bronze. It just feels right. It's not elation, it's justice. I feel like we finished where we deserved to finish for once. Can we expect similar and better finishes in future? I think so. You'd expect Patty, Joey to have another go around and a lot of the guys who debuted this year to return. There's plenty of young talent coming up. The bar has been set now and I think we're a good shot to jumop over it.

In a sense, finishing with bronze medal win is better than finishing the tournament with a silver medal loss.

That elimination anxiety made it all the more memorable - so much on the line!

In future, now that we got through that hurdle, a silver medal loss would be better than a future bronze medal win.

Last 4 tournaments?

2021 Olympics - 3rd
2019 FIBA WC - 4th
2016 Olympics - 4th

2014 FIBA WC - lost in round of 16 to Turkey...

Bronze is right, we're still hunting, rather than being the hunted.


When guys like Sobey, Death and Goulding are in the squad, we don't have the depth to have everyone come after us.

We are lucky to have a core with both experience and chemistry take us far, but we need more "F.U." stars.

When we need "I'm gonna score and there's nothing you can do about it", we need Patty to be on, or we don't have it.

Don't get me wrong, it was a wonderful effort, looking back we only played one bad half,the 2nd half Vs USA, but the control of the game outside of this was system, not stars.

We look to have a core if great potential, Giddey, Green, Thybulle and Landale.

The older guys can look to perhaps move to the bench quicker, ala Bogut in 2019. I'd like another Front court monster though, and I'm not sure we have one coming.

In international play, for me - consistency beats one off performances.

So, a long history of making it in the medal rounds, to me, means more than that one bronze - because it's more reflective of where the program stands on the World stage.

It's tourney play - luck of the draw, lots of little "chance" factors play too much of a part. But if you take 4, 8, 12 years of results - it's more meaningful.

In every sense, this bronze is truly a culmination of many, many years of work.

Just on this, is there anywhere we can watch a full game replay?

No luck on YouTube unfortunately

7plus still has the games, you just have to do a lot of searching to find them.

7's on-demand channel have it for 3 months (from the Olympics), about a month and a half left? Try that.

Time to use video ripping software to download the games before they disappear for good.

If anyone wants to watch a replay of any Olympic event in full, the below link is your best option.

https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/en/replay/

Good post, RobT. The Boomers have gone from over-achievers for the last 25+ years to genuine gold medal contenders. At the level they are playing, much as the US is still the team to beat, any of 4 or 5 other teams on their day can medal at major tournaments and Australia, along with France, would be top of that group. With tournament play - particularly the Olympics - you need to be at your best every game and even have a little luck go your way - although the better teams tend to make their own luck. A fantastic result for the Boomers and I think a major factor is they have passed the psychological hurdle of not being able to medal and have proven to themselves and us with genuine hope of a gold medal in the future. I also think Goorj has to be given a lot of credit. Obviously a great coach and a lot of talk of the culture of the team however he (and his coaching staff) obviously prepared the boys not only physically but mentally for every game which is a huge factor at this level. Injury and availability aside in Tokyo (which you can rarely account for) we have genuine, world class depth which allows us to keep continual pressure all game, every game and means that come medal rounds are "stars" are not exhausted as we have seen previously. Exciting future ahead for the Boomers