Basketball New Zealand

Boomers point guard CJ Bruton (Photosport)

The Australian Boomers will see some fresh faces when they take on the New Zealand Tall Blacks in the opening game of the 2008 Ramsay Shield in Auckland on Thursday night.

While six players have returned from the 2007 Tall Blacks team, including Captain Pero Cameron and centre Craig Bradshaw, the team’s other half consists of young guns being blooded on the international stage as the team undergoes a rebuilding process.

Sharp shooter Kirk Penney will join the Tall Blacks when they tour Europe ahead of the pre-Olympic qualification tournament for men in July, but will not be available for the series against Australia.

The Boomers, without their two biggest stars Andrew Bogut and David Andersen, defeated FIBA Asia Champion Iran 3-0 in their international series last week by margins of 19, 44 and 23 points.

Despite the new additions to the Tall Blacks team, Boomers head coach Brian Goorjian is keenly focused on his own squad as they continue on the road to Beijing.

“We’re looking at the continual growth and development of our team,” Goorjian said.

“Specifically, we can hone in on some things after the last series, where we did a pretty good job of mixing up our defences and I thought we played with a lot of effort, but we were poor in the execution of our half-court sets.”

“Our focus is with our own team. Right now it’s all about the Boomers.”

“I’m going into this series specifically to look again at the last couple of cuts, which are going to be tough, and to hone in on some offences that we executed poorly in the Iran series.”

“The guys are all aware of that and I’m sure they’ll be playing with some desperation because it would be a real disappointment to get this far and not get over the line to Beijing.”

“I know the guys will b e really committed in this series.”

Australia’s squad currently stands at 16 players, with the Olympic twelve provided to the AOC by July 2.

Still in contention for Beijing but not contesting the 2008 Ramsay Shield are Bogut (Milwaukee Bucks, USA), David Andersen (CSKA Moscow, Russia), Matthew Nielsen (Lietuvos Rytas, Lithuania) and Nathan Jawai (Cairns Taipans).

The Boomers touched-down in Auckland on Tuesday afternoon and have two practice sessions scheduled on Wednesday.

Tip-off on Thursday at the North Shore Events Centre will be at 7.30pm, while game two on Saturday night at the State Netball Hockey Centre in Melbourne will tip-off at 7.05pm (NZ time).

Both games will be broadcast LIVE on Sky Sport.