AFLW Richmond star Mon Conti still holds Opals dream of playing basketball for AustraliaBy Evan Morgan Grahame for The W with Sharni and Sam
ABC
5 October 2022Watching as the Opals won bronze at the FIBA World Cup, Richmond's superstar midfielder Monique Conti saw some familiar faces.
"I've played with many of those girls, which is pretty cool," Conti told The W with Sharni and Sam podcast.
"And I love basketball, I still just absolutely love it."
Seeing Lauren Jackson and her teammates triumph, Conti may also have felt the echo of an alternate reality, a different timeline, one in which she was winning and wearing World Cup medals in the green and gold.
Conti wants 'foot in the door' for elite basketballLike many AFLW stars — Erin Phillips (basketball), Ash Brazill (netball) and Emma Kearney (cricket) just to name a few — Conti has played another sport, basketball, at the elite level.
She debuted in the WNBL for the Melbourne Boomers in 2016, and won a league title with the Southside Flyers in 2020.
She represented Australia at the under-17 world championships, snapping the USA's 28-game win streak, winning gold, and being named in the team of the tournament.
But as a talented and lifelong footballer, Conti was drafted by the Western Bulldogs in 2018, won an AFLW premiership there, was an All-Australian, and has established herself as arguably the best player in the league since moving to Richmond.
But she still loves hooping.
"I still play WNBL1," Conti says.
"I was thinking of doing WNBL this season, whether that's training with the club or not.
"I still want to be involved, have my foot in the door.
"I just feel like with basketball — this is hard to say — but with basketball ... if you're a footballer that plays basketball, it's actually a lot harder to make your mark in basketball.
"Whether or not any more doors open for me as a basketballer, because I do play football, we'll have to wait and see — ask me that in five years."
Pressure to specialise made Conti 'feel disrespected'Conti says she was pressured to specialise as a young athlete.
"I actually got told this: 'You can't play at an elite level in two different sports.' I was like, but why?
"Why can't I? Yes, I can, and I went off to do that.
"But when that's coming from a high-level person at a club, it makes you feel disrespected, it makes you feel like no-one is in your corner.
"They want to own you."
Conti says her experience at Southside Flyers was very supportive.
"It wasn't like that," she says.
"It was definitely nothing but support.
"It's really hard to speak about it, because I have so much love for the sport in general, it's just some people involved that don't understand you can be good at two things.
"And it's really hard for the girls growing up ... if they have coaches from other sports telling them they can't do football and that sport. Why not?
"Shouldn't we be promoting girls who are good at sport?"
Australian rep dream still alive for ContiThe ambition of representing Australia with the Opals is something Conti still harbours.
"I still say that," she says.
"I don't know what the next day, the next two years, are going to be like for me, but I would love to do that.
"I still have my hopes and dreams to represent my country on the world stage, for the Opals, but I don't know when that's going to be, or if that's going to be ... but it would be nice."
For now, Conti's happy to be powering Richmond to a four-game winning streak, and she says the Tigers are primed to make the finals this season.
"We've come into this season not wanting to compete anymore, we're wanting to win," she says.
"We know what we want, we know how to get there, so let's just do it."
And Conti has been supreme this season, in fact all year: of the 16 games she's played in 2022, only twice has she failed to register at least 20 disposals.
Late last month, Carlton AFLW coach Daniel Harford called her the best player in the comp.
And Geelong star Patrick Dangerfield is a big fan.
The admiration is mutual, Conti says.
"He's so good, did you see him in that grand final? I think he got robbed of the Norm Smith.
"He's awesome, I didn't actually know that he'd tweeted that.
"Bless his cotton socks."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-04/aflw-superstar-mon-conti-opals-dream/101498726
