‘Fine, I’ll show you’: This star Tiger has not given up on her Opals dream

Paris 2024 might be too soon, but AFLW superstar Monique Conti says her dream of representing Australia in basketball is still alive as she dominates the WNBL season.

Conti has been told since she was a teenager that she couldn’t combine her two sporting loves – footy and basketball. But the Richmond superstar proved everyone wrong by winning the AFLW best-and-fairest award in December and returning to training for the Melbourne Boomers the next day, as most of her football teammates headed for a well-earned post-season break.

Monique Conti of the Melbourne Boomers.Credit: Getty

The 23-year-old is now backing up her career-best season for the Tigers with one at the Boomers and going toe-to-toe with Opals opponents – often beating them.

“I love getting a match-up on an Opals point guard and I love getting in people’s heads a little and annoying them … It’s the challenge that I love about it and it’s good to know that I can compete against the best,” she said.

If you’re wondering how she gets in Opals’ opponents heads without anything coming out of her mouth, she said she’s “like an annoying fly, or mosquito”, buzzing her hands.

Asked whether representing Australia was still on her mental vision board, Conti said: “I think it always will be, because anything can happen, right? You just don’t know.”

To realise her Opals dream, Conti would have to prove the doubters wrong all over again.

Basketball Australia said her football contract does not make her ineligible for selection for this year’s Olympics. However, to be considered by selectors for Paris, she would need to be available for all tour dates. The AFLW pre-season starts in May, while the Games begin on July 24.

Conti was not part of the 20-player squad selected for Olympic qualifiers in Brazil next month, and missed selection in the final 12, although players outside the initial group could have been selected. Conti has stiff competition for her point guard position, including Stephanie Reid, Shyla Heal, Tess Madgen and Maddison Rocci.

Monique Conti of the Richmond Tigers.Credit: AFL Photos

Boomers head coach Chris Lucas hinted that Conti was good enough to play for the Opals but would need to devote herself to basketball full-time.

“Just think that if she reaches her full potential with our team, she’ll play a role perfectly,” Lucas said.

Her record at junior international level, he added, was “a pretty good indicator that she’s very, very talented”. But he acknowledged she had made her choices and both she and the Boomers coaching team were happy with them.

“Whether she could be an Opal … she’d have to dedicate herself to that program and be 100 per cent at basketball,” said Lucas.

At 16, Conti made her international debut at the 2016 under-17 World Championship, helping Australia win gold and being named in the All-Tournament Team, before collecting gold at the 2016 Oceania under-18 championship and 2017 FIBA under-19 World Cup.

Around the same time, she signed a four-year deal with the Boomers. But one year in, the AFLW was introduced and Conti – part of the inaugural AFL Women’s academy and playing for Melbourne University’s under-18 youth girls team as well as the Vic Metro and All-Australian teams – wanted to pursue both. She said this wasn’t well received at the time.

“It took me years to, I guess, prove people wrong,” said Conti, who said even in juniors she would have to “tiptoe around the basketball scene” when it came to her footy.

“I was like, footy’s coming at the perfect time, ‘I want to try that’. To sit down and try and communicate that with people that didn’t understand at the time was really difficult,” she said.

“It was so emotionally draining and hard because I didn’t want to give up anything. So I did it and it was fine. I juggled that perfectly.”

Ahead of the WNBL 2019-20 finals, Conti asked to be released from her Boomers contract due to conflicts with AFLW. She returned for the 2023-24 season after a stint with the Southside Flyers.

Monique Conti.Credit: AFL Photos

Conti has been in the starting line-up for the Boomers, something she didn’t expect so soon, especially coming off a footy season and having to regain the muscle memory for basketball.

In round 10, Conti had a career-high 17 points, shooting at 57 per cent, and was named ESPN’s player of the round.

“That’s why it took me so long to sort of start playing a lot, because your quads get more sore more quick, your hips, your groins – especially the groins with moving laterally all the time, and that’s my game as well, just defence all the time,” she said.

“So just having to get my body used to the hard surface impact, the changing of direction, fast movements, it took me a few weeks,” she said.

In AFLW Conti has five All-Australian blazers, five club best-and-fairest awards, and a premiership and grand final best on ground medal with the Western Bulldogs to go with her W award.

“Always having people high up saying ‘you can’t do that’ or ‘you won’t end up playing big minutes if you’re doing this’ or ‘your body will break down, you’re too young, you’re going to ruin yourself’... I just sat there like, ‘Fine, I’ll show you’… Being where I am with my football, it’s like ‘Well, told you’.”

In fact, Conti says the sports complement each other, with football helping her strength and fitness and basketball aiding her agility, spatial awareness and ability to get out of small spaces.

One of her favourite things is when aspiring athletes, both girls and boys, or their parents, tell her they play both sports.

“God, if they like knew the struggle that went into getting that it’d be like, far out, I love it.”

The Boomers are second on the ladder behind Townsville Fire and well-placed for a finals appearance in March. They take on the Southside Flyers, Conti’s old team, on Sunday January 21 at Melbourne Sports Centre in their Pride game.

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