By David Gold

Tige Simmons_9_FebFebruary 8 - Australia are taking nothing for granted ahead of London 2012 despite the wheelchair basketball team's status as Beijing gold medal holders and favourites.


The Rollers beat Canada at the Beijing Paralympics  72-60, and have since won the World Cup in 2009 and the World Championships in 2010.

Tige Simmons (pictured), a member of the 2008 Paralympic winning team, insists that the team is not relaxing their game due to their favourites tag.

"Being the favourites is something we don't really talk about or acknowledge," said Simmons, who was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia after their success in Beijing.

"It's not a conscious decision, but we basically want to stick to the mentality where we're still the hunter.

"We sit back and know that teams are trying to chase us down and knock us off the top rung, but we've very much got the mentality where we say: hey, we're hunting, whatever team we go out there to play."

rollers 09-02-12
Simmons says that the team's strength will serve them well. 

"The strength of our team is experience and knowing each other's games, but we've got juniors coming through every state in the country and we've got a few young guys who are 19 and 20-year-olds really pushing us older guys along."

The Australian squad for this summer still yet to be decided.

Australia have a tough draw at London 2012, being pooled with the United States, Italy, Spain, Turkey and South Africa last month.

The other pool pit hosts Britain with Canada, Germany, Colombia, Poland and Japan.

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