Clunky Motions
A goofy Warriors loss, Blackcaps stuff, All Whites squad depth, Lydia Ko, Joseph Parker's tactical edge, Kiwi-NRL & more
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The Breakers Have Bowed Out Of NBL24, But It Wasn't Without A Fight (Basketball)
Recapping The Tall Ferns Efforts At The 2024 Olympic Qualifiers (Basketball)
Answering The Big Questions About Steven Adams Getting Traded To The Houston Rockets (Basketball)
Wellington Olympic Are Charity Cup Champs and the 2024 Domestic Footy Season Has Begun (Football)
Ben Old Has Dribbled His Way Into Golden Boy Status At The Wellington Phoenix (Football)
Assessing The State Of Women's Cricket In Aotearoa Ahead Of The White Ferns vs England Extravaganza (Cricket)
2023/24 Aotearoa Test Summer: Who Is Using What Bats? (Cricket)
Kiwi-NRL Spotlight: Xavier Willison The Blossoming Big Bopper (Rugby League)
Aotearoa Warriors Diary: The Three Young Aussies (Luke Hanson, Jesse Soric, Tallan Egan) (Rugby League)
Aotearoa Warriors Diary: NRL, NSW Cup, Jersey Flegg Round Tahi Breakdown (Rugby League)
27fm Weekly Playlist: March 8 (Music)
Scotty’s Word
Lydia Ko couldn't hold on to top spot at the LPGA event in China this weekend but she held steady to finish tied-4th. Ko shot rounds of 68 and 70 before a third round of 66 saw her climb up the leaderboard, before finishing with a round of 71 and dipping back down. Pesky result but Ko has good events out of the four she has played this year and the LPGA tour returns to USA for a tournament in California starting March 21.
2024 LPGA Stats
Results: 1st, 2nd, T34, T4
Average Driving Distance: 248.75m - 106
Driving Accuracy: 68.3% - 103
Greens in Regulation: 72.57% - 45
Putts per GiR: 1.75 - 25
Putting Average: 28.5 - 19
Sand Saves: 84.62% - 9
Scoring Average: 69.44 - 4
Rounds Under Par: 14 - 2
NZ Warriors had a stink loss to Sharks on Friday night. A dangerous loss. It's a long season and NZW can build into their flow under coach Andrew Webster (as Panthers and a few other NRL teams do), yet there is also a splash of urgency that frames the start of this season. NZW need to show folks that they are an upper echelon team again and that doesn't mean they need to win every game, but they should be winning games in which they have 54% possession.
Having the majority of possession means NZW had more runs, metres etc. NZW also tackled better than Sharks (92% vs 88.6%) and made fewer errors than their opponent (9 vs 11). Refs tend to react to who is winning the physicality battle and my feeling that the ref was working against NZW in the ruck (calling NZW off early, different for Sharks), that was probably more due to my frustrations. NZW had a quicker average play the ball speed (3.05sec vs 3.24sec) and penalties were split evenly (8-8).
Nothing really worked for NZW. All the attacking motions were clunky and while Sharks were covering space well to shut down NZW attacks, NZW could handle basic Sharks shapes when they did enjoy decent territory. This felt like a first up outing for NZW and while NZW have earned faith under coach Webster, there isn't much margin for error.
Unfortunately for NZW, two really goofy things plagued this loss...
The ground announcer trying to spark up fan chants. This was so cringe that one could argue the embarrassing vibe seeped into NZW footy. Any time an announcer at the venue has to instigate fans to be vocal, it's cringe. Let fans be fans and naturally come up with chants, when and how they want to - Test cricket is not a spot for hectic chants but even fans at Hagley Oval found their voice to amplify the awesome atmosphere.
I do accept the announcer guy for NZ Breakers whipping up hype and that's probably where my boundary sits. The NZB dude is on the floor and part of the action, helping fans understand what is happening as well as driving all the timeout/half-time entertainment. He takes his job seriously and drives the atmosphere, which is also evident in NBL games where some arenas have a DJ or hype man.
The announcer for Blackcaps in these Tests does a great job introducing players, broadcasting partnership or individual milestones. All of which adds to the viewing product - even when watching on telly because the announcer can always be heard. The NZW announcer barely popped up for anything else apart from starting chants and they were pretty bad chants...
Warriors ... cha, cha, cha
Waaaaaaaarrrrioooooooooooors, Waaaaaaaarrrrioooooooooooors
Up the ... Wahs!
The stretched out Warriors chant works well when a team is being bullied. Any chant works well when fans start it and the team generates it from the fans. The announcer kinda just killed the buzz though.
Andrew Webster didn't kill the buzz but he did something that is alright if NZW are winning, but makes no sense if they are losing. Bunty Afoa and Tom Ale were selected in the top-17 to play Sharks and with Marata Niukore out injured, this was viewed as an opportunity for these two to offer oomph off the bench. Afoa played 15 minutes and Ale didn't get on the field.
This isn't new and coach Webster gave Afoa a decreased role last season compared to previous years, while Ale got sporadic opportunities. Both are capable of at least providing energy coming off the bench, plus there isn't really a need for Tohu Harris to play 80mins, or the three starting middle forwards taking 20+ runs.
To complicate matters, Dylan Walker spent time at left centre when Taine Tuaupiki had an HIA (Roger Tuivasa-Sheck went to fullback) as well as edge forward with Kurt Capewell not playing for 11mins. Plus Freddy Lussick was used strictly as a hooker after Wayde Egan's injury.
Walker didn't play in the middle for 19 of his 57mins, meanwhile Afoa got 15mins and Ale got none. The starters are really good but Afoa is in eighth season and Ale is yet to play in hi fifth season. Afoa and Ale aren't young developing lads, they are guys who should be relied on. Coach Webster doesn't seem to rely on them though.
It sounds trivial but these aren't winning things, hence they are goofy notes. Winning teams don't have an announcer shouting into the void, nor do winning NRL teams carry two middle forwards to play 15mins combined.
One sneaky NZW lad to watch out for is Moala Graham-Taufa (Marist) who showed his speed for his try in the NSW Cup win over Newtown. Graham-Taufa has quietly thrived in the NZW system after returning to Aotearoa (him and twin bro Lani were Roosters juniors while at school in Auckland) and while he isn't as trendy as Ali Leiataua, Graham-Taufa deserves to be viewed as a fringe NRL outside back.
This is especially funky because he can play wing/centre, like Leiataua. These two could earn NRL mahi on the wing ahead of Ed Kosi or Setu Tu because of their ability and versatility.
Heading into the first NZW U21 Jersey Flegg game there were two gaps in the team list. Caleb Laiman (Marist) filled the gap at hooker and Paaua Papuni-Abbot (Te Atatu) filled the gap on the bench. Both are super funky because Laiman played for Bulldogs U21s last year and Papuni-Abbot played for Sharks U21s last year.
Bulldogs recruited Laiman but he was in the Future Warriors mix back in 2019. Papuni-Abbot's Hudl profile has Melbourne Storm stuff so I'm not sure what's doing there but he was recruited by Sharks mid-way through 2022.
My favourite performance in the NRL this round was the Eels win over Bulldogs and Morgan Harper settling at left centre for Eels. Harper's reputation diminished during his time with Sea Eagles and Eels have an excellent history of helping Kiwi-NRL lads improve/develop. Harper was a fabulous Kiwi-NRL junior coming out of Ngaruawahia where he played men's footy and made a few rep teams before being recruited by ... Bulldogs.
Harper excelled in the Bulldogs system and like many others such as Reimis Smith who was in many of the same teams as Harper there, Bulldogs shuffled them out. Harper had a few flashes with Sea Eagles but quickly fell out of favour and he not only earned a starting gig for Eels, he helped them defeat his former team.
Morgan Harper vs Bulldogs: 1 try, 13 runs - 124m @ 9.5m/run, 1 try assist, 2 tackle breaks, 7 tackles @ 100%
Eels won despite an injury to Mitchell Moses and this put a spotlight on Whangarei's Dylan Brown. Brown shifted into an organisation/leading half role and while Moses stayed on the field, there is a sharp increase in touches for Brown.
Dylan Brown: 50 touches, 31 passes, 8 kicks - 113m
Mitchell Moses: 40 touches, 25 passes, 12 kicks - 391m
Below are Brown's average kicking metres and running metres by season. They offer context for Brown's round one performance with Moses injured but also highlight how Brown has tinkered with his role for Eels in the halves alongside Moses.
Dylan Brown kicking vs running (per game)
2019: 58.8km |79m
2020: 109.9km | 116m
2021: 120.5km | 98m
2022: 64.2km | 125m
2023: 83.3km | 143m
2024: 113km | 128m
Up to Queensland where I was intrigued to see Tavita Henare-Schuster playing fullback for Burleigh. Roosters recruited Henare-Schuster from rugby union in Aotearoa (Hurricanes U20s) and after a strong season across the grades for Roosters mainly on the wing, now Henare-Schuster is in Burleigh as a fullback.
Burleigh have switched from being linked with Titans to Broncos which means Henare-Schuster is in the wider Broncos mix, without being in the actual mix. East Tamaki rugby junior Josiah Karapani was also playing on the wing after leaving Rabbitohs, while Xavier Willison was starting prop for Burleigh.
For the second game in a row, John Fineanganofo scored two tries for Redcliffe U19s in Mal Meninga Cup. Fineanganofo was starting hooker once again and he's got four tries in two games, after scoring 12 tries in eight games for this team last year. All the Kiwi-NRL lads for Redcliffe U19s are scoring tries and all four joined Redcliffe from 1st 15 rugby...
John Fineanganofo (Auckland Grammar): 4 tries
Tevita Naufahu (St Kents): 3 tries
Patrick Kailahi (Hamilton Boys): 2 tries
Elijah Rasmussen (Westlake Boys): 1 try
Plunket Shield games are wrapping up today but Otago have already snared a win over Canterbury. Luke Georgeson took 5 wickets in the first innings, Jacob Duffy took 4 wickets in their second bowling effort and Dale Phillips sealed the win with 70*. Here are their stats this season...
Luke Georgeson
Plunket Shield: 292 runs @ 29avg | 14w @ 32avg/3.4rpo
Ford Trophy: 253 runs @ 28avg/80sr | 16w @ 15avg/4.3rpo
Super Smash: 22 runs @ 22avg/95sr | 1w @ 32avg/8rpo
200+ runs and 10+ wickets in Plunket Shield/Ford Trophy. Couldn't get much Super Smash game time but Georgeson is in sublime form.
Jacob Duffy
Plunket Shield: 29w @ 19avg/2.7rpo
Ford Trophy: 12w @ 29avg/4.6rpo
Super Smash: 10w @ 17avg/6.7rpo
Will O'Rourke and Ben Sears have been called up to the Blackcaps Test squad ahead of Duffy, but he is having a good season and should stay in the mix.
Dale Phillips
Plunket Shield: 411 runs @ 37avg
Ford Trophy: 231 runs @ 28avg
Super Smash: 59 runs @ 11avg/105sr
Phillips is the only Otago batter with three 50+ scores in Plunket Shield.
Also big ups Canterbury seamer Sean Davey. The 30-year-old has played less than 15 games in all three formats and he only made his First-Class debut in 2020 with Canterbury, after rising through the Northern Districts pipeline. Davey took 5 wickets in the first innings against Otago and he has an exception record in FC/List-A...
FC: 13 games, 50w @ 19.12avg/2.57rpo
LA: 12 games, 19w @ 20avg/5.17rpo
T20: 4 games, 1w @ 65avg/7.22rpo
Musical jam...
Wildcard’s Notebook
No doubt you want to see the CompuBox stats for Joseph Parker’s superb victory against Zhilei Zhang on Saturday morning, right? Yeah so did I thus here they are in all their glory...
Two absolutely hilarious things about this fight (and rest assured I’ve written about it for the website already, that’ll be live soon). One was when Zhang got a rev-up from his corner ahead of the final round, where they basically told him that he’s been too ineffective throughout the second half of the bout and probably needs another knockdown to win this thing. He then proceeded to land zero punches in that final round.
The other thing was something that he did regularly when Parker caught him with a shot, where ZZ would performatively shrug it off as if to show the world how little it affected him. Except that he did it so often that clearly it did affect him to some extent, if only mentally. Also it might well be completely true that the punches didn’t hurt him but they didn’t need to hurt to score points and it was steady shots and combinations like that throughout the rounds (but especially rounds 4-12) which won Parker this bout.
You’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s podcast and our various written efforts for the Blackcaps vs Aussie Test fallout because that one’s very raw right now. Plus, you know, it unfolded as this was being written. But I did whip up some numbers from something that’d been bugging me during the series: Partnerships. Like, specifically how there were only six 50+ partnerships by Blackcaps pairs throughout the four innings and none of them were consecutive. Got much better in the final knock in Christchurch but alas not quite enough.
Blackcaps Batting Partnerships vs Australia
1st Wicket – 12 | 15 | 47 | 6 | Avg: 20.00
2nd Wicket – 0 | 20 | 14 | 105 | Avg: 34.75
3rd Wicket – 0 | 24 | 10 | 44 | Avg: 19.50
4th Wicket – 17 | 67 | 8 | 123 | Avg: 51.25
5th Wicket – 0 | 0 | 5 | 8 | Avg: 3.25
6th Wicket – 84 | 2 | 23 | 10 | Avg: 29.75
7th Wicket – 0 | 36 | 0 | 53 | Avg: 22.25
8th Wicket – 48 | 23 | 0 | 22 | Avg: 23.25
9th Wicket – 1 | 7 | 55 | 1 | Avg: 16.00
10th Wicket – 17 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Avg: 4.75
Two notes of addendum there, the fifth wicket is when Tom Blundell comes in and the eighth wicket is when Matt Henry comes in. Matt Henry who, by the way, took 17 wickets throughout this series. That’s equal second-best by any Blackcaps bowler in a 2-Test series. Here are the folks...
Dan Vettori vs Bangladesh 2004-05 (A) – 20 wickets @ 11.20 avg
Chris Cairns vs West Indies 1999-00 (H) – 17 wickets @ 9.94 avg
Ajaz Patel vs India 2021-22 (A) – 17 wickets @ 22.06 avg
Matt Henry vs Australia 2023-24 (H) – 17 wickets @ 12.35 avg
So that’s something.
The Wellington Phoenix fellas lost 1-0 away to Melbourne City on Saturday night. Tough trip to a venue they always seem to have trouble at in some ruthless heat and yet they probably played well enough to get a draw. The same type of draw they’ve been eeking out throughout this campaign to keep the points tally ticking over even on the tricky days. The goal they conceded was a rare bit of passive defending, Alex Paulsen half-attacking a deep cross then getting caught in no-man’s-land and Lukas Kelly-Heald failing to get a challenge in for the header. Kosta Barbarouses then thought it was last season when he shanked a 1v1 late on following a special through ball from Boz Kraev. So it goes. They were probably due a match like that.
In amongst it, we got another debut. This time it was Gabriel Sloane-Rodrigues, getting onto the pitch at the sixth opportunity after a bunch of unused sub spots over the last couple months. GSR is a speedy winger who was part of the U17 World Cup squad late last year, inexplicably only getting 75 minutes off the bench across their three games. But he’s risen quickly through the ranks at the Welly Nix – don’t forget when Oskar Zawada called him the most exciting prospect in the academy at the start of the season – and with this debut he now becomes the club’s youngest ever player.
He’s also the seventh new academy debutant this A-League season (there were a couple others in the Aussie Cup too but that’s not the same thing... also Josh Rudland, Kaelin Nguyen, and Ben Wallace have all since left the club anyway – ageing out of the academy in the new year and joining other National League clubs). Those seven debutants are: Lukas Kelly-Heald, Fin Conchie, Fergus Gillion, Isaac Hughes, Matt Sheridan, Luke Supyk, and GSR.
One of those Welly Nix debutants has just been called up to the All Whites. Darren Bazeley today named his squad for the games against Egypt and either Croatia/Tunisia, and there was a much bigger Phoenix contingent than usual, reflecting their excellent season. Tim Payne is always there. Alex Paulsen and Fin Surman have worked their way in on form and were in the previous squad (Surman debuting against Greece, Paulsen still awaiting his first cap). Kosta Barbarouses has earned a deserved recall. Ben Old is there too – called up two years on from his first series, when he was a depth selection for the early games of Oceania World Cup qualifiers. Funny to think that Old debuted in the same game as Ben Waine and Oli Sail, who have 20 combined caps (to Old’s two). And the other... is Lukas Kelly-Heald.
Definitely the most surprising call-up considering James McGarry and Dalton Wilkins have both made big transfers in the past six months... but there’s a reason for that. Bazeley is also the Olympics coach and he’s clearly got an eye on that U23s side here with eight players out of 24 eligible for Paris 2024. Those being: Tyler Bindon, Matthew Garbett, Lukas Kelly-Heald, Ben Old, Alex Paulsen, Marko Stamenic, Finn Surman and Ben Waine. LKH is the only one of those who could be argued wasn’t an automatic selection anyway though. There just happens to be a bunch of very talented young footballers in Aotearoa right now.
A First Eleven from those guys:
Crocombe
Payne, Boxall, Pijnaker, Cacace
Bell, Stamenic, Garbett
Just, Wood, Singh
I have a sneaky suspicion that Old, Paulsen, and Surman will all make starts across these games, probably in the second of them. Note also a recall for Oli Sail amidst some resurgent form for Perth Glory. No such luck for Bill Tuiloma though who remains on the outer as he still hasn’t played a proper club game since July 2023. No play, no pick. That’s how it ought to be (beyond very rare case of extreme mana such as Winston Reid).
Alex Rufer misses out because our top-choice midfield is stacked, no complaints there. Alex Greive also loses his spot to Kosta Barbarouses, bit harsh but Kosta had to replace someone. Not quite ready for a Marco Rojas return as he builds up his minutes. Matt Dibley-Dias also isn’t here but remember he skipped out on possible All Whites tours late last season too in order to remain with Fulham during international breaks where he got greater first team opportunities. Fair enough. As long as he’s in the mixer for the Olympics themselves.
A back-up squad of 24 players who aren’t involved here...
GK – Nik Tzanev, Michael Woud, Kees Sims
DEF – Bill Tuiloma, Kyle Adams, George Stanger, Isaac Hughes, Callan Elliot, James McGarry, Niko Kirwan, Dalton Wilkins, Storm Roux
MID – Alex Rufer, Matt Dibley-Dias, Jay Herdman, Marley Leuluai, Finn Conchie, Sam Sutton
FWD – Alex Greive, Marco Rojas, Myer Bevan, Andre De Jong, Ollie Whyte, Logan Rogerson
Not trying to claim that many of those backups would make the squad ahead of the main fellas, at least not yet, but it goes to show the depth on display. Depth which is going to expand further when the Auckland ALM side begins playing games at the end of the year. We’ve seen the impact that the Welly Nix have had on the Football Ferns, it won’t be as clear with the All Whites but there are ten A-League players in this group. Plenty of room for a few more contenders.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, Meatbodies…