Tall Ferns look for 'scoring punch off the bench'

MINSK (2016 FIBA Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament) - The clock is ticking on the New Zealand Tall Ferns, a team still not as potent as it needs to be heading into the FIBA Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament (WOQT) in France.

The Kiwis, coming of a tour of China and a visit to Latvia, are now in Belarus for a four-nations tournament. They have just 12 days to go before they square off against France in their WOQT Group A opener in Nantes. The following day will see the Tall Ferns meet Cuba.

I believe we have it in us and we just need to find a few more players that can give us some scoring punch off the bench and maintain our effort levels and execution. We have the tools and we will find who those players are in the next leg of the tour. - New Zealand coach Kennedy Kereama

So will the New Zealanders be as good as last summer, when they were outclassed by Australia at the FIBA Oceania Women's Championship yet nevertheless showed some fighting qualities?

That team did not have 2008 Olympian Jillian Harmon, who missed a third straight summer of national team duty. Harmon, having last featured for the Kiwis at the 2012 WOQT, is now back with the team.

So is another player that did not represent the Tall Ferns in 2015, Antonia Edmondson. She has returned for the WOQT campaign and been a reliable scorer in the team's friendly games.

As the latest outing showed, however, a defeat to Latvia in the second of two friendlies, New Zealand need some production from the reserves. They need to have more weapons than Harmon, Edmondson and Kalani Purcell.

Coach Kennedy Kereama needs some of his bench players to step up. If one, two or three do, the New Zealanders will see their chances of grabbing one of the five spots on offer for the Rio Games at the WOQT improve dramatically.

"I believe we have it in us and we just need to find a few more players that can give us some scoring punch off the bench and maintain our effort levels and execution," coach Kennedy Kereama said. "We have the tools and we will find who those players are in the next leg of the tour."

At the four-nations tournament in Minsk, Kereama's team meets Belarus on Thursday, Turkey on Friday and Japan on Saturday. The Tall Ferns will be looking for a boost from a couple of guards. Erin Rooney, who plays professionally in France, is coming off knee surgery but the hope is that she will be healthy enough to play in Belarus.

"I'm looking forward to seeing what she can bring and adding her to our rotation," Kereama said.

The other player that Kereama wants to get a lift from is guard Chevannah Paalvast, who got the night off in the second of the two friendlies against Latvia so the coach could "get her right for the next part of the tour".

At the WOQT, New Zealand will be big underdogs against the French, the silver-medal winners at the 2012 Olympics who are No. 4 in the FIBA World Ranking. But their chances against No. 13 Cuba on 16 June would appear to be much better. New Zealand have a world ranking of No. 22.

A top-two finish is needed for New Zealand to progress to a Quarter-Final against a Group B side - Turkey, Argentina or Cameroon.

The winners of the four Quarter-Finals will advance to the Rio Olympics while each of the losers will go after the one remaining spot at the WOQT for Brazil.

FIBA