And he should know what he’s talking about — he has produced one of Western Australia’s greatest basketball exports.

Worthington’s son, Mark, is a pillar of Australian basketball.

The Melbourne Tigers deputy captain has been a Boomers regular for several years and won Commonwealth Games gold for Australia in 2006.

Worthington was the NBL’s 2006 rookie of the year and captained the South Dragons in 2008-09.

Worthington Snr said Western Australia’s annual Country Cup campaigns play a key role in discovering the next wave of NBL and Boomer stars like his son.

“From the WA side of things the Country Cup has become a very important tool for the development of our juniors who will hopefully go on to play at a national level,” Worthington said.

“It’s all played in similar conditions to national championships, exposing the players to travelling in a team environment and flying away from mum and dad.

“It’s always a very well organised tournament, it’s friendly and its a very good development tool.”

Australian Emus (under-17) Cameron Gliddon and Tyler Hickert are two of WA’s most recent national representatives that have set previous Country Cups alight.

The 2010 crop got its week off to a slow start with WA losing all of its day one matches.

But they turned the tables yesterday, winning all four morning contests.