WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: POOL B - AUSTRALIA VS KOREA

March 9, 2023

David Nilsson

Robbie Glendinning

Robbie Perkins

Tokyo Dome

Team Australia

Postgame Press Conference

Q. (No translation.)

DAVE NILSSON: A lot of relief right now. Very proud of the team, the resilience they showed. Very tough game. Very strange game. Had to stand out on defense for a long time that inning and had to endure a lot, had to overcome a lot of emotions. Korea threw a lot of different challenges at us, but we responded like I knew we could and very rewarding for everyone involved.

Q. (No translation.)

DAVE NILSSON: Well, they're both significant. First of all, Robbie Glendinning, that was as clutch a hit as I've, I've been around team Australia for a long time. To battle through it and to fight back like we did just shows the character of the man. He's not just talented, he has a big heart and he fights.

And then Robbie Perkins just added on. He's catching, he's working hard, long innings, and he got rewarded for a lot of work in the lead-up.

Q. (No translation.)

ROBBIE GLENDINNING: Yeah, I swung through the split the first pitch and I thought I saw it pretty well and I took a decent swing. So I was thinking fastball and I said to myself, if I see that up again just get to the bottom of the baseball, and I hit it and I knew it was one of the best feelings I've had and I knew and I remember looking in the dugout and everyone just going crazy and it was a great feeling.

Q. (No translation.)

ROBBIE PERKINS: Yeah, we had runners on second and third, less than two out, and I was just trying to do the minimum job for the team, get us another insurance run, and just saw it well up in the zone and was able to get enough bat on it and it left the yard.

Q. (No translation.)

ROBBIE PERKINS: Look, as far as momentum, I think every guy just has their role to play and everyone played their role today to obviously result in a win against a tough team like Korea, just guys coming in, doing the right thing, giving it their all, playing with heart for every play.

Q. (No translation.)

DAVE NILSSON: Well, I'm going to enjoy tonight and then the main thing tomorrow is just speaking with the guys and making sure that they're okay, making sure they remember why we are here. They're all here to get through to the second round, there's no doubt around that, so I don't really have much concern around the team. We'll get through the off day. We'll really enjoy it, freshen the bodies up, and then tomorrow night we'll start preparing for China and we'll come out.

It's an extremely important game for us and I don't see any letup from any of our players.

Q. (No translation.)

DAVE NILSSON: It was a very long inning and our defense had to stand there for a long time, and that was very disturbing. They played a great game and it was a clear disadvantage for all of our players to be on the field for that long. I went to make a pitching change and there was a bit of confusion around when Jim Bennett, the pitching coach, had been out there.

At first they told me I couldn't go out because he had been out for that hitter, so I went back and confirmed with the dugout. They all let me know. And then when I went back, you know, it was a pretty big moment and it sped up for a lot of people. I think that was the case. They were just having trouble remembering when our pitching coach had been out there, and then they weren't going to do it. They weren't going to check, and I wasn't going to leave until they checked it. I know that.

So, you know, you saw what happened. It put us at a clear advantage. But, again, the resilience that everyone on our team showed, it would have been a very easy moment for us to look for excuses, it would have been an easy moment for us to turn our guard off, but we battled through it and we come through.

Q. Question for the coach. Where does this stand in the history of Australian baseball? Is this the biggest win ever in the history of Australian baseball?

DAVE NILSSON: You know, that's too early for me to answer that right now. I probably need to go and reflect. There's been a lot of good players come before us and we've had a lot of good victories before in other areas. We've won a silver medal in Olympics. We've won a gold medal in the World Cup previously. What I can tell you is right now that feels pretty significant. That feels like a pretty big moment, definitely.

Q. For all three, you obviously do not draw up a game like that, but to have a game like that, what do you think that experience is going to do for you when you face adversity in your remaining three games?

ROBBIE GLENDINNING: I just think for the playing group it gives us a lot of confidence. We took a lot of shots in that game, whether it was that long 8th inning, the three-run homer that they went ahead 3-2. I think it gives us a lot of confidence to never quit and keep rolling. No one really gave us a shot to win that game and we believed in ourselves, so I think that it just gives confidence to the playing group.

ROBBIE PERKINS: Yeah, for me our playing group has always played with resilience. Typically we're not expected to win games like that, but we always have belief in ourself that we're going to go out there and we're going to shock the world. So we always have that mentality of we're never out of it, we're going to keep grinding away.

Q. I want to talk about that tag play at second base. Robbie, did you know you got him out? And Dave, when you saw that, did you know that call was going to get overturned?

DAVE NILSSON: Well, first of all, I didn't see it. Robbie was the one responsible for the whole play. The center fielder, Aaron Whitefield, didn't give up, made a great throw, and then Robbie made a heads-up play and was all in on it. So he did it all on his own. It was a big turning point in the game, and he let the dugout know what had happened, so that's just a great moment by a great player.

ROBBIE GLENDINNING: Yeah, our coaches, Michael Collins specifically, and Andrew Graham have had a huge emphasis on the replay in this tournament. A lot of us aren't used to playing with replay. And I know from previously I've tagged guys when they have come off the base and I knew in that situation he might not have been thinking and when I put the tag on, I knew for a fact that he came off the base. I think the replay might have shown it pretty clear. But, yeah, I was pretty adamant towards the dugout that I got him.

Q. (No translation.)

DAVE NILSSON: Well, again, six months ago we were in Sapporo preparing. We hadn't been together as a group for a long time and it didn't go well. Everyone saw the results against Japan, but the message leaving there was it really clearly identified all the work we had to do and it showed the shortfall that we had encountered during COVID sitting around for a couple years as a team. A lot of individuals had done a lot of hard work, but collectively we hadn't. We've worked hard to get back to this level, and you saw that today.

Q. (No translation.)

DAVE NILSSON: Oh, I think everyone's going to learn a lot from that game. I think the players are going to learn a lot. I think the officials are going to learn a lot from that game. There were some elevated heartbeats there in the 8th inning and a lot of emotion and I think everyone will be better for what happened out there today and we shouldn't see that again.