Molloy this week guided the under-18 men’s VIC Metro team to success in the Australian Junior Championships in Launceston, Tasmania – and his sights are now set on NBL success.

Despite entering the tournament as underdogs, Molloy’s young charges overcame WA Metro 66-49 on Saturday night to take out the gold medal game.

“I think going into the tournament VIC Metro hadn’t been regarded as a favourite to win, there were a couple of other teams that were fairly highly ranked,” Molloy said.

“Queensland South had five kids that are presently at the AIS so they were fairly clearly everyone’s favourite I think, but our kids played terrifically well and really improved as the week went along.”

As head coach of the state metro side, Molloy relied heavily on his team’s superior work ethic and strong defensive nature to overcome the interstate challenge.

“The team had a terrific work rate and that was probably their defining characteristic and enabled them to play incredibly good defence,” Molloy said.

“I think for that age group of boys it’s the best fundamental defence I’ve seen a team play in a long, long time.

"They were pretty ferocious, they never gave anything away too easily and other teams averaged 30 turnovers or more for the entire week against us, so that was probably the defining characteristic of the team.”

After years in the basketball caper Molloy is no stranger to young talent, but even the NBL mastermind was excited by what he saw down south this week.

“There was lots of talent at the tournament throughout, I don’t think there were some of the wraps going into the tournament for our boys that there were for kids in other states so I think that they really played well and they stuck their hands up to be noticed by the AIS or a US college or a more senior team,” Molloy said.

“I think some scouts would have been pretty pleasantly surprised by what they were able to do.”