Assembly Time
Wellington Phoenix men's & women's squads, Kiwi-NRL offseason signings & Leger-Walker things
Podcast
TNC Variety Show - Episode 36
The Niche Cast - The Present Moment (Sean Marks, Kane Williamson, All Whites)
Reading Menu
Here’s That (Very Young) Football Ferns Squad For The Canada Friendlies (Football)
Aotearoa Warriors Diary: Exploring The Redcliffe Dolphins Link Up (NRL)
The Kiwi-NRL Juniors Who Helped Australian Teams Make Finals (NRL)
Flying Kiwis – October 12 (Football)
All Whites vs Curaçao: 692 Days Later... (Football)
All Whites vs Bahrain: It Feels Familiar, Somehow (Football)
First Impressions Of Steven Adams With The Memphis Grizzlies (NBA)
Matua Strike-Rate: Jimmy Neesham's T20 World Cup Upside (Cricket)
Lockie Ferguson vs Kyle Jamieson: The Battle of Perception (Cricket)
The T20 World Cup Quest For Batting Leadership With Martin Guptill and Kane Williamson (Cricket)
Scotty’s Word
Expansion…
We’ve recently had ‘The Dolphins’ announced as the 17th NRL team for 2023 and beyond, meanwhile Moana Pasifika and Fijian Drua are building into their first Super Rugby campaign. I’m fairly positive about such expansion and opportunities provided but I’m curious to see how such desperation for expansion winds up.
Every competition wants expansion or in simple terms - more, more, more! We are seeing this weird push for a two-year football World Cup cycle and while not strictly falling under the ‘expansion’ label, there are clear trends in the world of football about needing to make more money. In USA Seattle Kraken are competing in their first NHL season after Las Vegas Golden Knights were added to NHL in 2017. The NFL saw St Louis Rams become Los Angeles Rams in 2016, San Diego Chargers become Los Angeles Charges in 2017 and Oakland Raiders becomes Las Vegas Raiders in 2020.
The cricket realm is all about more. England crammed as much cricket as they could into this year, India ensures that Indian Premier League goes down no matter what and T20 leagues are all the rage. USA is trying really hard to get into cricket (big ups Corey Anderson) and whether it’s The Hundred or 10-over competitions; cricket always needs more.
All of this is men’s sport - women’s sport actually needs expansion. Men’s sport desires expansion and as I’m looking around the sports world to only see expansion (or at least the premise of more, more, more!) NRL and Super Rugby expansion are in glorious alignment with the sports world. So why do I feel weird about this?
Well, I could get into the yarn about wanting to slow down. Wanting to exist in a simple space without the need to rush forward. To pursue growth while being content. Let’s stick to sport though and the easiest way to chop this up is that expansion means more games, more games means more things to sell to broadcasters and that means more space for advertisers to pay for.
Every sports league wants more money in their next broadcasting deal than they got previously. Chuck in covid and leagues/organisations want to make up money lost. How do you make more money? Play more games with more teams.
Bring this back to Super Rugby and NRL for the caution. Super Rugby struggles to get the Sanzaar nations aligned on matters, the format seems to change every year and Super Rugby stopped playing games in Fiji/Samoa because they lost money. NRL has been through a regular season in which every week featured 40+ point blowouts and many mid-season games literally did not matter. Neither competition is approaching expansion from strong foundations, both competitions are battling through issues and will solve those issues with expansion?
Will expansion propel these leagues to higher levels? I’m not sure if or how they would hinder the league either. Just know that expansion is all about the disease of more. At least NRL expansion comes as Kiwi-NRL numbers stay on the rise…
Kiwi-NRL Summer Signings…
Last week I highlighted a lack of Melbourne Storm Kiwi-NRL juniors as Judda Turahui moves to Bulldogs. Just as my slow-down vibe may be wrong in the capitalism of professional sports, I was wrong as Storm have two young Kiwi-NRL outside backs in K-Ci Whare and Tea-Rani Woodman-Tuhoro.
Woodman-Tuhoro is from Whangarei (Takahiwai) and played for Brisbane Tigers U18s earlier this year. Whare is from Christchurch (Riccarton) and played for Burleigh Bears U18s. This is further evidence of the South-East-Queensland hub as both were moved over from Aotearoa to Brisbane/Gold Coast and both were in Aotearoa last year. Storm also apparently have Brayden Easthope-Seu (Otahuhu) who was part of a recent Storm pathways camp.
That’s three Kiwi-NRL juniors who are loosely in the Storm ranks. How this looks early next year will be more important as squads get fine-tuned and lads are spread out across feeder clubs. Keep in mind that Storm have their Victoria Thunderbolts footy in Victoria, while also being aligned with Brisbane Tigers and Sunshine Coast Falcons in Queensland.
Easthope-Seu played in the same 2018 Counties Manukau Under 15s team as Salesi Ataata - who recently signed with Cronulla Sharks. Ataata is a beast who played a few SG Ball (U18) games for NZ Warriors early last year and played Fox Memorial (Auckland men) this year for Otahuhu. Ataata joins another Otahuhu trooper Semisi Sikei as high calibre Sharks Kiwi-NRL juniors.
Kiwi-NRL summer moves…
Michael Chee-Kam (Mt Wellington Warriors): Tigers to Rabbitohs.
Peter Hola (Marist Saints): Cowboys to Raiders.
Phillip Makatoa (Mangere East Hawks): Sea Eagles to Bulldogs.
My Blackcaps T20 World Cup 1st 11…
Martin Guptill | Devon Conway (wk) | Kane Williamson | Glenn Phillips
Daryl Mitchell | Jimmy Neesham | Mitchell Santner
Ish Sodhi | Tim Southee | Trent Boult | Lockie Ferguson
Hip de hop…
Wildcard’s Notebook
SheNix Assemble..
Remember this one for (oddly specific kiwi sports-related) pub quizes down the line. The first ever signing for the Wellington Phoenix Women’s team: Lily Alfeld. Somebody who played last season for Perth Glory and was pretty excellent for a losing team, getting plenty of opportunities to show off her shot stopping abilities. Felt like she was a Save of the Week candidate every damn round.
Alfeld was part of a kiwi trio at Perth in 2020-21 but only Liz Anton has remained. Alfeld’s moved to the Phoenix while Malia Steinmetz had already transferred to Western Sydney. Which to be honest is a good move for Steinmetz, not only because she’s been living in Sydney playing for the Northern Tigers the last couple years but also because a team like WSW will arguably have better use for her defensive midfield strengths. Plus it’s just cool to spread the kiwi love around the league.
The Welly Nix Women confirmed head coach Gemma Lewis and assistant Natalie Lawrence as the coaching staff earlier in the week – after an annoyingly long wait while they confirmed paperwork – and promised that player signings were to follow and here’s signing tahi. They can sign a further 10 New Zealanders to go with seven additional Australians (which can – and by the sounds of it will – include dual nationals). I’ve written a couple times speculating on who that may include and the goalposts keep moving with players going overseas to clubs/universities and even the odd retirement. But the word is that a good chunk of the squad has already been sorted out and it’s all a matter of taking care of the technicalities.
Three players who have always felt like locks (at least they should be) are Anna Green, Macey Fraser, and Mickey Robertson. Green is a veteran who can cover multiple spots in the backline and her experiences in the WSL in England and for the Footy Ferns at major tournaments would be huge with a number of young players likely to be in the squad. In fact make her captain. A few veteran Aussies won’t go astray either.
Robertson, like Green, was in the Olympic squad. A Wellingtonian who has, again like Green, spent time with the Phoenix Academy already. She’s tiny but she’s quick and direct and scores goals from the wing. Then there’s Macey Fraser who has also found her way to the WeeNix, having also spent time with Canterbury Pride, the 2018 U17s World Cup squad, the FFDP, and the Ole Academy. And she’s a gun futsal player. So... pretty much ticked all the player development boxes. Fraser was great for Southern last National League, moving there for guaranteed playing opportunities and delivering with some classy midfield performances. But she hasn’t been named in their 2021 squad... [looking eyes emoji].
Lewis and Lawrence are coming in from the FFDP programme which will surely be where the bulk of the players come from both for on-field continuity and also thanks to NZF’s involvement. Looking at some of the names from recent years who may be available, the likes of Charlotte Wilford-Carroll, Kelli Brown, Saskia Vosper, Arabella Maynard, Georgia Candy, Mackenzie Barry, Grace Wisnewski, Grace Jale, and Ava Pritchard all leap off the page. Then there’s Annalie Longo who is hugely experienced in the A-League W and was involved in the team announcement as NZF’s head of women’s development... very few hints as to whether that new gig comes at the expense or along with her playing career though. We shall see. Tui Dugan had a bit to do with the team announcement too.
Righto, reputation on the line now, here are the eleven players I’d suggest that Gemma Lewis and the team signs. We’ll see how many of them I get right...
Lily Alfeld (GK)
Anna Green (DEF)
Mickey Robertson (FWD)
Macey Fraser (MID)
Charlotte Wilford-Carroll (MID)
Kelli Brown (MID/FWD)
Mackenzie Barry (DEF)
Georgia Candy (MID)
Saskia Vosper (MID)
Arabella Maynard (MID)
Annalie Longo (MID)
That’s an *if available* for Longo though, if she can’t play then throw in Chloe Knott instead. Alfeld did hint that the squad is gonna be quite young so keep that in mind - the players I’ve picked include five from the 2018 U17s (Fraser, Brown, Barry, Candy & Maynard). It also depends on who wants to move to Australia for several months which is a factor we cannot predict.
HeNix Assemble…
Meanwhile the lads have also made a new signing. They wanted to get North Macedonia U21 international Matthew Bozinovski on a permanent basis but Melbourne Victory weren’t agreeable to that. However they have loaned him for this season which is nice of them. Bozinovski hasn’t played A-League yet but at 20 years of age and 195cm tall he’s surely ready to rock and with the Nix he’ll get more opportunities in the short term. Then maybe it ends up a permanent thing, maybe not. But he’ll definitely help in the wake of Steven Taylor’s retirement.
As it stands, Bozinovski (The Real Bozza) is one of three CBs in the squad and the only one who’s a true specialist. Tim Payne and Josh Laws being the other pair. Uffie has said he intends to dip into the transfer market for another couple imports – to directly replace Taylor and Ulises Davila – but that it won’t likely happen until January because of the current quarantine yarns. Negotiations are underway with a couple options but don’t expect to hear about anything for a wee while yet.
Here’s the current squad:
GK: Oli Sail, Alex Paulsen
DEF: Tim Payne, Josh Laws, James McGarry, Callan Elliot, Louis Fenton, Matthew Bozinovski
MID: Alex Rufer, Nicholas Pennington, Clayton Lewis, Sam Sutton
FWD: David Ball (I), Gary Hooper (I), Ben Waine, Jaushua Sotirio, Reno Piscopo
That’s only 17 players signed up so if the imports aren’t coming until January then they’re still three locals short of filling things out. It has been mentioned that Ollie Whyte featured for the team in a preseason friendly – former academy dude who left for a stint in Portugal then came back and was great for Team Wellington in their final season. Get him in there immediately. Beyond him... well to be honest with the group flying to Aussie in about two weeks, probably the very start of November so as to finesse some quarantine dates, the window may have closed for other locally based dudes to win those gigs. Will be curious to see how many, if any, current academy lads make that trip. They’re probably best served staying and playing National League to begin with, seeing as that shortened season only overlaps by about a month with the A-League M season.
Leger-Walker Things…
New Cougs season tips off on 10 November NZT. A preseason poll just had them predicted to finish sixth in the Pac-12 conference which is crazy considering they were predicted dead last by the same poll a year ago – then went and qualified for the national tournament for only the second time in the programme’s history. By the way, this is the conference that provided both finalists in that national tournament so it’s about the toughest in the entire country. (Probably should mention that there are 12 teams in the Pac-12... duh).