Australia will field the best team in their history in this week's Olympic qualifying series, according to captain and former Major League All Star David Nilsson and coach Jon Deeble.

South Africa and Australia will slug it out over a best-of-five series at Blacktown's Olympic Park, starting today, with the winner claiming the eighth and final spot in Athens.
In their only meeting of recent times, Australia beat South Africa 10-4 at the Sydney Olympics, where the teams finished seventh and eighth respectively.
Both failed to make the quarter-finals of the 2001 World Cup.

Australia have not fielded a team in a major tournament since then, as professional stars were not available for the 2003 World Cup.
It will be a different story this week, as all but a handful of Australia's 26-man squad are affiliated to American Major League clubs.

While most have been learning their craft in minor league teams, some such as Trent Durrington and John Stephens, have experienced major league action.

"This is by far the best team we've had," said Nilsson, who played in an All Star game during his time with the Milwaukee Brewers and hasn't represented Australia since the 2000 Olympics.
"We have most of our professional players available, it's a completely different team mentally and physically, so we are at a different level now and looking to be one of the forces of world baseball."

Deeble said there was no doubt the Australian team was the best ever assembled.
"In the 2000 Olympics, we had a lot of guys that were single 'A' and ex-professionals - and now we've got a bunch of 'AA', 'AAA' and major league guys," he said.
Deeble also noted Australia were still without several major league players including pitchers Michael Nakamura and Luke Prokopec.

South Africa qualified to meet Australia by winning the All African tournament last October.

"They are not going to be easybeats.
They've got seven or eight in professional baseball and a couple of players who are former professionals and they can swing the bat and have got decent pitching.
So it's not going to be a pushover," Deeble said.
"We are going to have to be at our best to beat them and I'm confident we will be."

Nilsson recently resumed playing in Italy after taking a long break following the Sydney Olympics.
"There were a number of reasons. I just needed a bit of a break, I played a lot year-round for so long," he said.
Nilsson hopes to keep playing overseas to prepare for the Olympics if Australia qualify but isn't sure whether he would play again in the major league.
"There's no immediate plans for that.
If that's where the road takes me, that would be good, but I'm just focused on the Olympics right now," he said.

David Nilsson will lead his little league of Aussie sluggers in an Olympic baseball qualifier starting in Sydney tonight.

Australia expect to win comfortably the best-of-five series against a South African team short on international experience.
At least the South Africans have turned up, which is more than can be said for Guam, who forfeited a qualifying series against Australia last month.

Despite the constant flow of Australian players to the US, Nilsson remains, even in semi-retirement, the most high-profile baseballer Australia has produced.
Baseball officials say the former gloveman for the Milwaukee Brewers is driving himself as hard as ever, following Australia's poor performance at the Sydney Olympics.

A team which hoped to be a gold medal contender finished seventh, perhaps overawed, but certainly overwhelmed, by the occasion.

Nilsson said yesterday that although the Australians need match practice in this campaign the cancellation of the Guam series was probably no bad thing.
The Australians would have been faced with virtually a one-month camp, which could have dulled the sharp edge needed against South Africa.

So the Aussies have used the time to introduce themselves to each other, because many players are meeting for the first time.
Many play Major League baseball in the US, most play at other levels and some play state league in Australia.
Even manager Jon Deeble, who has been around Australian baseball for a decade, came across two players in camp last week he had never met.

Despite the lack of teamwork, Nilsson says the Australians want to wrap up the series 3-0.
"We don't need experience in losing," Nilsson says.

There have already been some shock results in Olympic qualifying and Nilsson wants to be sure the Australians are not on the casualty list.
The defeats of the US and Korean teams has stunned the sport but Nilsson is in two minds about the absence of two of the favoured teams.
"We are playing a home series to qualify for Athens and it does look like everything is going in our favour," he says.
"Perhaps our path is a little bit easier with the absence of the USA and Korea but we still have to play the teams which beat them."

If Australia qualify, selectors will have to choose an Olympic squad of 24 players from a pool of more than 40.

The 2004 National Baseball team are set to face African champions South Africa this weekend in a bid to secure the final spot in the 2004 Athens Olympics.

The 26-man squad will play a best of five series at Blacktown Olympic Park from the 5th-9th of February with each game starting at 7.30pm.

Head coach Jon Deeble has every faith in his team, claiming that the 2004 squad is the best representative team Australia has produced in a very long time.
With 23 of the 26 players already professional, Jon predicts that his team have enough experience and ability to make it through to the 2004 Olympic games.

South Africa arrived in Australia late last week and have begun extensive training at BOP.

The Australian team went into camp on the 2nd of February and will train until their first game on Thursday night.