NEWARK (Rio 2016 Olympics) - With the Rio Olympics less than 10 days away, Canada have taken a valuable lesson from an 80-67 loss to Australia on Wednesday in Newark, Delaware.

Paced by Penny Taylor and Liz Cambage, Australia started too strong closing the opening quarter with a comfortable 29-13 lead.

In a game with two Rio-bound teams, Taylor set the tone for the Australians with a team-high 19 points, Cambage dominated the paint with 16 points and 5 rebounds, and Erin Phillips and Leilani Mitchell had 12 points apiece.

It was a good learning experience and hopefully we can take a lot of things from this game because we did do a lot of things well except for the first 10 minutes." - Thornburn

And although Canada trailed by as many as 23 points, they trimmed the deficit to four points later in the final quarter, but it was a bit too late.

The loss came two weeks after the Canadians completed a three-game warm-up series over Rio-bound China.

It’s about time for Canada to get ready for Rio, admitted Shona Thorburn who finished with a team-high 13 points off the bench.

“It was a good wake-up call for us," recalled the London Olympian Thorburn.

“It's coming down to the Olympics and we can't take the first 10 minutes to get into the game and get things rolling so I think we learned a valuable lesson tonight that teams are going to come out aggressive against us and we have to be the aggressors and be the ones that take to the aggressiveness first.”

“It was a good learning experience, and we hopefully we can take a lot of things from this game because we did do a lot of things well except for the first 10 minutes, so I'm excited to see how we bounce back and how our next game goes,” Thorburn added. 

As part of their Rio Olympics build-up, Canada will take on the U.S on Friday in Bridgeport, Connecticut, while Australia square off against France.

FIBA