WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: POOL B - AUSTRALIA VS KOREA

March 8, 2023

David Nilsson

Tokyo Dome

Team Australia

Workout Day Press Conference

Q. Finally you have the 2023 tournament start. What is in your mind the day before the tournament starts?

DAVID NILSSON: Very excited to finally be here. It's been a long journey.

Q. You've been here for two weeks and you've played a couple of intra squad games. How is your team's condition?

DAVID NILSSON: Our team's condition is very good. We intentionally came here early so we would acclimatize to being in Japan. Obviously it's a very clean place. It's a very safe place but there are a few things that a little bit different for Australian players.

Coming here early, knowing we had 12 o'clock games, waking up early, getting the body clocks ready to go, it's been a great experience, and we're glad we've been here for two weeks.

Q. For tomorrow here at the Tokyo Dome you'll have your opening game against Korea. What's the impression overall for the Team Korea?

DAVID NILSSON: Team Korea are a very solid team. They are very well prepared. They have very good athletes and good pitching, so I expect it will be a very tight battle. I expect it to be a very close game and I expect to see some very good pitching.

Q. Do you have any specific opening comment for tomorrow's opening game?

DAVID NILSSON: Yeah, I just want to let you know that Team Australia are very well prepared and we are very honored to be here part of the World Baseball Classic. We are looking forward to playing against some great international competition and I think we are going to perform very well, and I hope you enjoy watching us play.

Q. From the Korean team, who are you impressed with the most?

DAVID NILSSON: We look at every player. We've noticed there's quite a few good players, position players, and they have some great quality pitching. I don't like to identify one person because we need to prepare to play against the whole team, and we don't put any player ahead of each other.

So I'm not going to name any special player for Team Korea because I think we need to prepare to play the whole team and we treat every player as important as the next one.

Q. We asked four years ago, we asked -- Lim Jung-woo (ph) and his father. How has the impression changed for player Lim Jung-woo is this?

DAVID NILSSON: We don't like to focus on individual players, so I'll refrain from answering too much but very impressed. Very impressed with what I've seen.

Q. Can you explain how popular baseball is in Australia and what this competition means to people watching in Australia?

DAVID NILSSON: I think this is very important for every country, every team that's representing their country to have a generation of children watching, I think is very important.

And it's really important for all the Australian kids, for all the parents and families and supporters in Australia and the media. We represent everyone, and when you look at our logo, that's what it shows. It represents every race, every person from Australia. So how we perform, hopefully will reflect very well on the whole country.

Q. When you're playing against the first round, what is the key game? Because you have four games.

DAVID NILSSON: It's very easy playing four games to be distracted and think that one game is more important than the other. The most important game is the one that you're preparing for, and tomorrow we play against South Korea, and that is the most important game for us right now. When that game finishes, then we'll look to the next game, and as boring as it sounds, one game at a time, and it's even less than that. It's just one pitch at a time for us.

So all of our attention right now, every bit of our preparation has been around preparing for South Korea.

Q. Can tell us about your pitching plan and who is the starting pitcher for tomorrow's game?

DAVID NILSSON: Thank you for the question. Our starting pitcher is a young left-hander, Jack O'Loughlin. He's a young professional pitcher with the Detroit Tigers, and it will be a very big moment for him and I'll be excited to see how he responds. Excited to see how our team responds to playing behind Jack.