Clear Intentions vs Cosmic Gumbo
Junior Footy Pipelines, New Breakers Signings & Some Recommended Laughs
Podcast
TNC Variety Show - Episode 24
The Niche Cast: Like The Honey Bee (NZ Sports Culture & Blackcaps T20)
Reading Menu
Hypothesising What A Wellington Phoenix Women’s Squad Might Look Like (Football)
Flying Kiwis – Sarpreet Singh’s Going Back Out On Loan (Football)
Flying Kiwis – July 6 (Football)
2021 Kiwi County Tour: Batsmen Tings (Conway The Machine) (Cricket)
2021 Kiwi County Tour: Bowling Tings (Hat-Trick Homies) (Cricket)
27fm Album Jukebox – June 2021 (Music)
Scotty’s Word
Kings College 1st 15…
I’ve a kept a loose eye on Kings College 1st 15 since noting that some of the best NZ Warriors prospects are in their squad. During the week I caught a replay of their latest game and was pretty impressed by the Ali Leiataua/Francis Manuleleua midfield combo; Leiataua played Warriors SG Ball last year and Manuleleua has featured in Future Warriors (U16) games.
Both look much bigger than last year and have great mobility. Both are also Papatoetoe Panthers rugby league juniors and that’s another funky Niche Cache wrinkle here as we’re from Papatoetoe and big up South Auckland. Kings College gets plenty of rugby recruits from around Aotearoa with such as Judda Turahui who Kings recruited from Hawera Intermediate (Taranaki) and Turahui is now in the Melbourne Storm system.
Kings also catch the local vibes though and as I don’t actually care about 1st 15 rugby itself, I do like the angle of Kings providing a pathway to professional footy. For those who don’t know - Kings literally sits on the border between Papatoetoe and Otahuhu, so being a local kid I’m also going to be intrigued by the pathways offered. All my research suggests that Leiataua and Manuleleua were both recruited from rugby league and this is not new, nor exclusive to Kings. Regardless of any cynical views about Kings College, they are at least picking some of the best footy talent from the local area via scholarships.
Eric Va’afusuaga was part of the Kings College 1st 15 last year and he is now playing for Redcliffe Dolphins Under 21s via NZ Warriors. This week the Dolphins U21s features Va’afusuaga and William Fakatoumafi (Otahuhu) named at centre, plus Daeon Amituanai (Whiti Te Ra - Otaki) on the wing. My deep Google searches also say that Va’afusuaga, Amituanai and Sebastyan Jack (Marist Saints) have played Under 20s for Brighton Roosters which is a tad south of Redcliffe.
That’s interesting because Va’afusuaga and Jack started the year with Redcliffe Dolphins U18s. Here we see some low key Warriors development moves as these lads were U18 eligible and once that competition finished (Mal Meninga Cup), they were bumped up to U20s. The Kepu twins (Manurewa Marlins) are another example have they have both been named in the Dolphins ISC squad after starting with Dolphins U21s.
Take this as fact: NZ Warriors seem to be doing a great job of developing their Aotearoa talent over with Redcliffe Dolphins.
Back to 1st 15 rugby and we know that the Warriors have Zyon Maiu’u, Tony Tafa and Jacob Laban at Kelston Boys High School. Jeremiah Asi is also a notable lad to keep tabs on as he played Warriors SG Ball last year and is still playing 1st 15 rugby for St Peter’s College this year. Most of these lads have featured in Auckland Blues U18/Schoolboys stuff as well as Aotearoa Schoolboys and the only lads who are definitely ‘under contract’ to the Warriors are Maiu’u and Laban - Warriors have announced that.
That is to say that once leaving school, Super Rugby and NRL clubs compete for much of the same talent and I don’t know all the intricate details.
Maiu’u, Tafa and Leiataua all played in the NZRL Under 20s competition this year … then moved back to 1st 15 rugby. Kinda bonkers. Navajo ‘Budda’ Doyle also featured for one of the Auckland teams and along with his brother Chicago Doyle, they are in the Kings College 1st 15 team this year with Leiataua and Manuleleua. These Doyle kids have caught some viral highlights love…
The Kings 1st 15 team has Budda at #10 and Chicago at #15. Chicago’s highlights are mostly Pakuranga Rugby Club and Budda played rugby league for Papatoetoe … alongside Leaiataua and Manuleleua! They all featured in the Papatoetoe U15 team that played Marist Saints in the 2018 final which you can watch here.
This game also featured Jack in the Marist team as well as Deine Mariner who is now in the Broncos system.
Navajo and Chicago Doyle, may be brothers of Geronimo Doyle who played 1st 15 for Mount Albert Grammar before rising up through Otahuhu Leopards and Counties Manukau rugby league. Given how funky their names are, one would imagine they are related in some way. Geronimo picked up a rare deal with Swinton Lions over in England, playing in the level below Super League.
All of which brings me to my idea of the week which I wrote about in the Kiwi-NRL Youngsters wrap and discussed in the Niche Cast. Marist Saints is the only Auckland club mentioned here that has solid Fox Memorial (Premier Men) team and even then they certainly aren’t a force in Fox footy compared to the big/rich/powerful clubs. In all my Kiwi-NRL work, I see very few players from the big Auckland clubs and most of them come from smaller Auckland clubs such as Marist, Mangere East, Otahuhu and Ellerslie.
Which makes one wonder where the power actually sits. These smaller clubs will always struggle to compete at a Fox level because all their players are too good, moving into NRL systems while the players who don’t crack NRL end up playing for the big clubs because they get jobs, cash and whatever else. Applying this to all grassroots sports is tricky because every sport has different wrinkles or factors, yet I think this basic premise is still important…
What is the intention of your grassroots club?
Do you want to win on Saturdays (and enjoy all that comes with that) or do you want to develop and produce professional athletes?
I view this as an extremely important idea because smaller, less powerful clubs don’t need to play the same game as the big clubs. Switch up the intention to develop professional players and then there is no reason to complain or whinge about what the big clubs are doing. Do this successfully and your club will become known for developing talent, which will provides just as much reward as winning on Saturdays and grabbing sponsorship money.
Become a junior powerhouse and players will remember their grassroots club fondly. The club will grow the junior playing base and thus boost fee-paying numbers, plus you can still enjoy sponsorship money that is based around the development system.
Would you rather have a club that wins on Saturdays or a club that is known for producing the best players? Both are equally as viable, yet the latter is far more viable for smaller clubs - such as Marist and the South Auckland league clubs.
Wildcard’s Notebook
Breakers Assemble
This is easily the most fun time of the year to follow the Breakers. The games are the whole point of any sports team, sure, but between injuries and general weirdness those games have often been kinda predictable lately. The last couple seasons... not good. But the offseason is when the funky stuff happens, when the unpredictability arises. The Breakers are not the most patient team out there and disappointment tends to lead to decisive action. Whether that decisive action is the smartest ploy or not... that’s where the funkiness comes in. And there’s been plenty of that in the last couple days...
Re-signing the head coach who has failed to make the playoffs in consecutive seasons? Of course they did. The Breakers picked up his third-year option midway through his first year while he still had a losing record so why not.
There’s definitely a case to say that last year was a write-off given the logistics. Plus Shamir was stitched up with the Lamar Patterson thing. Pretty hard to win around those circumstances... however there’s also a feeling that at no point in the last two years, except possibly the last couple months of season one, has Shamir looked like he’s been able to get the best out of his teams. And when they were really clicking for that brief run it was Scotty Hopson doing the damage and they then chose not to try and re-sign him. Baffling is a word that springs to mind (although what the Breakers say and what actually happened aren’t necessarily the same thing).
Shamir has a say in the recruitment side of things so some of that is on him too. Letting Tom Vodanovich and Jordan Ngatai leave to have really great seasons with rival NBL teams. Not signing Yanni Wetzell or Izayah Mauriohooho-Le’afa when they were available. These were dumb decisions that they were left to regret... so much so that they’ve now signed Yanni Wetzell themselves, as I discussed either last email or the one before that, forget which.
So yeah this is a little weird. I don’t think that Shamir was on the brink of being sacked or anything but I do think there had to be some questions asked at this point (read this thing for more thoughts on that idea). But not only have the club reaffirmed their belief in him but they’ve gone and extended him. Okay then.
Also, when did we stop using the Director of Basketball tag? I was always annoyed that they didn’t cop more flak for that because it was such a transparently silly thing to do amidst the Kevin Braswell ‘redundancy’. Instead they were just sorta allowed to get away with it (looking mostly at my kiwi sports media brethren and sistren here) as it slowly faded out of use and Shamir just became the head coach after all. Now that’s officially official... while Mody Moar has been promoted to Associate Head Coach. Another made up terminology. I guess it means he’s better than the rest of the assistants? But we already knew he had that seniority. More weirdness. There’s always something with these jokers. Even their best moves have an asterisk to them.
Meanwhile...
Peyton Siva, who is of Samoan descent and was a late-second round pick in the Steven Adams draft of 2013 (he played 24 games for the Detroit Pistons), has bossed it in Europe for the last few years winning consecutive German championships with Alba Berlin in 2020 and 2021. He’s got a similar skill-set to Tai Webster: athletic, though considerably shorter, with great passing abilities but is not the most consistent three-point shooter. Someone who puts the team ahead of their own stats but can still score in volume when needed. A really nice addition on the same day that Melbourne United added Matthew Dellavedova.
Now, if they’re signing an import point guard then that suggests that Tai Webster is gone, right? He’s off contract and could easily slide into another European team. Plus it’d be hard to see the fit between Webster and Siva, particularly on a roster which was a below-average three-point shooting team last season... in a league where far and away the best jump shooting team was the one that won the championship (Melbourne Utd). But nah Olgun also reckons in his write-up that team sources have told him they’re close to a Tai Webster re-signing too. One thing that’s been consistent about the New Breakers is that they value talent over fit every time, backing themselves to make it work. Except they haven’t yet been able to.
Then there’s Hugo Besson. 20 year old French baller who was expected to be drafted this year but an ankle injury meant he couldn’t partake in workouts so here he is at the Breakers on a three year deal. Three years is a lot for an unproven young import player (and he’s an import, not a Next Star – they already have one of those - though we might as well treat him as one) but you’ve gotta think that’s because they expect him to head to the NBA at some point and the long deal protects them and their chances of getting some remuneration in return. Cash money, baby.
Besson is a combo guard, someone who doesn’t hesitate to shoot and if that translates into buckets then that’s exactly the kind of player that this team needs. Useful off the dribble too by the looks. However his inexperience is obviously a huge risk, especially when he’s coming in at the expense of another import (though there is still one import spot remaining). Having another Frenchman on the roster can surely only be good for Next Star Ousmane Dieng too, a helpful thought given how their last NS guy struggled to settle in off the court. But apologies if I seem skeptical when people tweet about what a strong roster that NZB are putting together when last year’s incarnation was supposed to be a championship contender. I’m gonna need to see it before I believe it.
Assuming that those two deals are confirmed by the club (and pencilling in the Tai Webster rumour), that gives us a roster that currently looks a little something like this...
PG – Peyton Siva (I) | (Tai Webster)
SG – Corey Webster | William McDowell-White | Hugo Besson (I)
SF – Tom Abercrombie | Rasmus Bach | Isaac Davidson (DP)
PF – Finn Delany | Ousmane Dieng (NS) | Kyrin Galloway
C – Yanni Wetzell | Rob Loe | Sam Timmins (DP)
Tai Webster would take them up to 11 roster spots which is the max so assuming then that Finn Delany is probably leaving as has always been suggested he might. Then Abercrombie can start at the four with WMW in the starting five and an import forward slides into the rotation. Or the Tai Webster thing doesn’t happen.
Either way I’m looking at a roster with a disturbing lack of shooting but an extreme amount of skill, vision, and quickness… playing for a team which was one of the slowest in the comp last season. I’m honestly struggling to see how this all gels together but hey you never know. I’ll try write a proper thing about all this when we get some official announcements.
Olympic Yore
Heaps of downbuzz stuff about the Olympics at the moment with Japan not exactly in the best place to be hosting it right now. But the IOC is the IOC and it’ll go ahead regardless and to be fair the athletes are gonna be pretty well shielded from the general public – these major events basically exist in their own temporary countries while they’re going on. So rather than dwelling on them things, here’s a video of the 1932 100m freestyle versus the 2016 edition.
There’s a 10 second difference... but there’s a reason comparing between ages is pointless. Human potential is the same now as it was then. Only the technology and the strategies change. I mean, the most notable thing here is that back then they didn’t do the flip turn, they just swum right up to the end of the lane and turned around and went again. The starting blocks are different too, in ‘32 they’re just jumping off the edge rather than having that tapered platform. Then chuck in diets, gym work, more regular competition, and all those factors and there’s your 10 seconds right there.
I really love watching old clips of Olympic events though. There’s something so fascinating about having a vision of something almost nobody alive today is old enough to remember. The Olympics being what they are, there’s so much incredible footage throughout the years. There’s even a Criterion box set.
Seeing the way in which sports evolve like what we’re looking at with the swimming there, it’s a small version of being able to see your own place in the ongoing chain of human history. I always find that a comforting idea. I dunno. It’s helpful to know that most things have been done before given that so many problems with the world are from people repeating the mistakes of history because society’s lost track of its own context. The more we hang onto these things, the wiser we become as a people. Also, sports are cool and watching sports is fun so there’s that too.
ITYSL S2
Haven’t written about filmy stuff here for a wee while… about time that streak got snapped because I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson just dropped its long-awaited second season on Netflix and I have thoughts. Note that new things always drop, they don’t arrive or appear or get summoned or whatever. Occasionally they’re released but them’s the rules, I don’t make ‘em. On with the show.
If you haven’t watched ITYSL then you’ve seen screens of it. The hot dog man wondering who did this. The old fella dabbing at the office desk with the best car ideas. The baby in the biker costume that everybody hates. It was one of the most meme-able shows in years and absurdly hilarious too. I wrote a thing about it at the time. Suffice to say that the second season was highly anticipated.
And did it land (after being dropped)? Eh, not initially. I smashed out all six episodes on Tuesday night straight after it appeared (sorry, broke the rules) and the initial impressions were that it was missing a bit of the zip of S1. A lot of sketches felt like they weren’t fully written, great ideas or punchlines but pencilled in around those bits. A couple of them were just straight up rehashes of season one faves. I laughed thoroughly throughout but there was something missing on initial viewing.
Thing is, the first season was a bit like that too. Many of these jokes aren’t instant hits, they’re slow burners. I was sold immediately by the second sketch of S01E01 when the Baby of the Year contest arrived but many others it wasn’t until rewatches that they shone through. It’s a point I make when writing about musical albums often that the great ones are so stacked, every listen you come away with a new favourite track. This show was kinda like that so season two clearly needed some simmering time on the backburner before throwing up anything negative.
Also, keeping the music album thing going, the first season was stacked with the best stuff that Robinson had left over from his years at Saturday Night Live and various other gigs. Same as a debut album is full of songs that’ve been worked through in bars and clubs for years. Then the second album... you’ve got, like, a year max to get cracking. Plus production here took place during a pandemic just to add to the hurdles.
With that in mind, here were some initial thoughts from season two...
Best sketches: Karl Havoc, Ghost Tour, Detective Crashmore Pt 1 & 2, TABLES, Claire’s Ear-Piercings
Nowhere near enough Sam Richardson and Conner O’Malley (one main sketch each, though O’Malley pops up in a video cameo in another) – for Richardson I’d assume that’s coz he’s been makin’ movies
Much better quantities of Patti Harrison whose Santa Should’ve Wrapped It sketch in S1 was a show stealer (she’s also a writer on the show)
Lots of crying, lots of shouting... Tim Robinson reaction memes are an unlimited resource
But not enough singing. Nowhere near enough singing
A couple of sketches here (including two listed in my top five there) which finish on genuinely sad notes. One of the major themes in this show is people doubling down on their social mistakes and there’s one in particular, the Ghost Tour embedded up top, which doesn’t only use the punchline there but it goes further and offers a reasoning and a consequence of that kinda behaviour. Which is brilliantly funny in a meta way but, like... it sticks with you for how tragic it is
Robbo is such a generous lead. There are sketches in which he doesn’t appear at all. There are sketches where he plays the straight man. There are plenty more where he serves up his usual manic energy but yeah this is a pretty diverse comedy show. Which is one of those things that in 2021 we shouldn’t need to give it credit for but we can give it credit for focussing on comedy chops above all else, being a comedy show and all
So yeah first impressions were that it was almost us funny but not as deep as the first season. A few too many forgettable sketches in there, or sketches that didn’t go far enough or ended abruptly (to be fair that’s a claim you can occasionally throw at season one too).
But then a strange thing began to happen... I started rewatching individual sketches that had stuck with me. And the reddit threads and tweets began appearing, as did the critical responses. And sketches that at first I’d laughed at and moved past kept coming back to me and they were getting funnier with those rewatches and with the emerging memes and references. And it’s the same swelling growth that season one took. And I think I need to go watch Detective Crashmore again. Like, right now. It’s a cosmic gumbo. Gotta go.