The New Zealand Tall Ferns have missed out on automatic qualification for the 2016 Rio Olympics after losing 80-63 to the Australian Opals at Mount Maunganui's ASB Arena on Monday night.

The Tall Ferns will now have to navigate a repechage series in mid-2016 if they want to gain passage to Brazil.

NZ Tall Ferns will now face a 2016 repechage series for a place at the Rio Olympics after defeat to Australia in Mount Maunganui last night. Photos: Bruce Barnard.

The second game of the 2015 FIBA Oceania Championship Olympic Qualifying Series began slowly, with Lisa Wallbutton scoring all of NZ's points as the scores were tied six-apiece after five minutes.

Neither team could establish superiority, with a couple of free throws from Jordan Hunter tying the scores at 14 each at the end of the first quarter.

Katie Ebzery handed Australian the lead with a triple that was cancelled out by Micaela Cocks from deep, who then added three points to give NZ a 22-21 advantage three minutes into the period.

Australia then cleared to a 31-24 advantage before nice interior offence from Hunter, Penina Davidson and Jess Bygate, sporting a black eye from Saturdays encounter, kept the Tall Ferns in the game at half-time trailing 40-33.

Cocks led all scorers with 11 points at the interval, was Rachel Jarry (9pts) was the best for Australia.

The NZ frontcourt was seriously depleted as Wallbutton picked up her fourth foul in the opening moments of the third period and retired to the bench.

Australia then capitalised, and began to dominate proceedings to open up a 52-37 advantage as the experienced Batkovic and Hodges took charge in the paint.

Natalie Taylor, Kalani Purcell and Cocks responded for the hosts to keep the margin within range, with the Opals ahead 58-47 at the final interval.

The outstanding Cocks opened the fourth quarter with a long three followed by an even deeper effort later in the period.

Despite the defeat, Tall Ferns captain Natalie Taylor was happy that the team gave a better performance than on Saturday night.

'It was disappointing losing (on Saturday),” says Natalie, 'and only scoring 41 points was never going to cut it against them, so scoring 63 points was good.

'But we needed to keep them around the 60 points so defensively we could have done a better job.”

Taylor was also disappointed with the slow start to the second half.

'The third quarter is quite often an issue for teams, coming out after half time, especially if you are down,” she adds.

'We put a focus on coming out strong but they got a bit of momentum and extended that margin a little further.”

Looking ahead to the possibility of the young team qualifying for the Olympics via the repechage route, Taylor was upbeat.

'I think 12 teams go to the tournament and four make it through,” she explains, 'but it is really important that New Zealand has an opportunity.

'We have to compete against number two in the world every time to go to a world event. It's not an excuse but it's not easy.

'We have so much young talent in our team and it's extremely exciting for us. It's good that people in NZ were able to see that, as all of our girls are playing overseas. Hopefully we can continue to build on our programme”.

It's NZ's second loss to Australia in the 2015 FIBA Oceania Championship Olympic Qualifying Series after losing to the Opals 61-41 in Melbourne last Saturday.