AUS - Lonergan: U17 is a great platform for young players

TOULOUSE (2010 FIBA U17 World Championship for Women) - Australia have been one of the best teams in women's basketball for years and they will look to successfully defend their FIBA World Championship crown in the Czech Republic later this year.

The Opals's success has inspired a younger generation of Aussie players who will look to make a mark for themselves at the inaugural FIBA U17 World Championship for Women which gets underway in Toulouse and Rodez on Friday.

FIBA.com talked to Australia U17 women's head coach Peter Lonergan - who is alsoan Opals assistant coach - on the eve of the tournament.

FIBA: What are your thoughts on having an U17 tournament?
Lonergan: It's a great opportunity for us when you consider that we have a 15-year-old on our team (Carley Mijovic) and she's 20,000 miles from home. It's pretty amazing. It's a real good way to start the international playing career of these youngsters and to expose them to something very new and very exciting.

FIBA: Putting basketball aside, how important is it for the players to experience life in a different part of the world?
Lonergan: It's a great learning curve in terms of life experience and you know we come from a country of 20 million people so to travel halfway around the world and deal with travel, the change of food and language issues as well as getting some cultural education and awareness is great. Even though basketball is the primary focus, because these are young players and young people, we have a responsibility to expose them to other things as well.

FIBA: There is an initiative to get local children involved in this tournament. They will be taking part in activities outside the stadium in the morning and interacting with the players and teams and then be attending the games. Do you and your players look forward to that?
Lonergan: Yes very much so because with children comes energy and excitement and if we can fill the venues with children it will bring a good deal of freshness and enthusiasm which hopefully can rub off on the players.

FIBA: Can you tell us a bit about your team and your expectations?
Lonergan: We have eight players coming back from last year's U16 Oceania Championship winning team. We have four new players that were unavailable or injured at that time. In terms of expectations, we talked about making the quarter-finals with the best seed possible and going from there. We don't really know enough about the opposition to look too far ahead. So we're aiming to make it to the last eight and we can re-assess our goals there.

FIBA: What do you make of the other teams?
Lonergan: Well you have the European champions Spain. We played them in a friendly last week and they're a wonderful team. They only beat Belgium in last year's final after overtime. I guess they are the quieter team from Europe. You can look at the pools, but I don't think one pool is stronger than the other. It's not going to be a run-through to get to the quarter-finals.

FIBA: And are you glad to be here in sunny south of France while it's winter and quite cold back in Australia?
Lonergan: Yes. I think it was 12 degrees celsius when we left Sydney and 40 degrees when we got to Spain for the last of our friendly games last week. After we got over the shock, it was certainly enjoyable to get away from the Southern Hemisphere winter.

FIBA