The 2015 FIBA Oceania Championship Olympic Qualifying Series pitched Australia, ranked 2nd in the world against New Zealand, the 22nd ranked nation. The result of game one in the series, played in Melbourne on Saturday, justified the rankings as the Australian Opals convincingly beat the New Zealand Tall Ferns 61-41. However, although the Australians won game two in Tauranga 80-63 the game was a lot closer than the final scoreline suggests, the Opals scoring their last five points in the final 15 seconds of a keenly fought contest.
Lisa Wallbutton scored all New Zealand points in the early exchanges as the scores were tied 6 apiece after 5 minutes.
Neither team could establish superiority, a couple of free throws from Jordan Hunter tieing the scores at 14 each at the end of the first quarter.
Katie Ebzery extended the Australian lead with a triple that was cancelled out by Cocks from deep, who then added the next three points to give New Zealand a 22-21 advantage three minutes into the second period. Australia then cleared to a 31-24 advantage before nice interior offence from Hunter, Penina Davidson and Jess Bygate, sporting a black eye from Saturdays encounter, kept the Tall Ferns in the game at half-time trailing 40-33.
Cocks led all scorers with 11 points at the interval, Rachel Jarry with 9 points the best for Australia.
The New Zealand frontcourt was seriously depleted as Wallbutton picked up her fourth foul in the opening moments of the third period and retired to the bench. Australia capitalized and dominated proceedings opening up a 52-37 advantage as the experienced Batkovic and Hodges took charge in the paint.
Natalie Taylor, Kalani Purcell and Cocks responded for the hosts to keep the margin within range, the Opals ahead 58-47 at the final interval.
The outstanding Cocks opened the fourth quarter with a long three followed by an even deeper effort later in the period Those efforts book ended efforts from Davidson and Chevannah Paalvast but the Opals were able to absorb the Tall Ferns best punches and retain a double digit buffer eventually winning 80-63.
Cocks led the Tall Ferns scoring with 21 points, Wallbutton (10pts) the only other Kiwi in double figures. Australian captain Laura Hodges led all scorers with 24 points.
Tall Ferns captain Natalie Taylor was happy that the team gave a better performance than Saturday night.
“It was disappointing losing (on Saturday) and especially only scoring 41 points was never going to cut it against them so scoring 63 points tonight was good. But we needed to keep them around the 60 points so defensively we could have done a better job.”
Taylor was also disappointed with the slow start to the second half.
“The third quarter is quite often an issue for teams coming out after half time, especially if you are down. We put a focusoncoming out strong but they got a bit of momentum and extended that margin a little further.”
Looking ahead to the possibility of the young team qualifying for the Olympics via the repechage route Taylor was upbeat.
“I think 12 teams go to the tournament and four make it through but it is really important that New Zealand has an opportunity. We have to compete against number two in the world every time to go to a world event, it’s not an excuse but it’s not easy.”
“We have so much young talent in our team and it’s extremely exciting for us. It’s good that people in New Zealand were able to see that, as all of our girls are playing overseas. Hopefully we can continue to build on our programme”.
The result means Australia automatically progress to the 2016 Rio Olympics. New Zealand faces a repechage series in mid 2016 if they want to gain a passage to Brazil.
