Tara Murray
The Keilor Thunder women’s program will get a money can’t buy opportunity with a match against the Philippines national team tonight.
The Gilas Pilipinas are in Australia for the Asian Cup which begins next week and are warming up with matches against a number of teams.
Thunder general manager Jackson Taylor said it was a pretty exciting opportunity for the club.
“We’re really excited to have the national team in town,” he said.
“In particular for us, we have a strong Filipino community in our area. It’s exciting any time a national team comes out.”
Taylor, who recently started in the role, said he wasn’t sure whether they had played a national team before.
He said the move in the NBL1 competition had opened up a lot of opportunities for them.
“Ever since we’ve been in the NBL1 the level of basketball we’ve had in the local community has increased.
“We had the Melbourne Boomers for pre-season, Melbourne United played here.
“It’s fantastic to get such quality basketball.”
Taylor said many of their players would never get an opportunity like this.
The Thunder team is set to be a mix of youth league girls and NBL1 girls.
“These girls get to go up against a high level of competition,” he said.” I think it’s a great opportunity for those girls and girls coming back from injuries to set some more minutes against high quality opposition.”
The Gilas Pilipinas will also hold a clinic for young Filipino kids from Melbourne’s west which Taylor said was exciting.
He said it was a good way to get the community to engage in the sport.
