Continental Debuts
Flying Kiwis in European comps, Will Young scores runs, Welly Nix squad building check-in, and plenty of Kiwi-NRL goodness
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2022 NRLWahine Season Preview (Rugby League)
Looks Like The Wellington Phoenix Blokes Are Embarking On Another Aussie Cup Run (Football)
Kiwi-NRL Spotlight: Daejarn Asi Mana (Rugby League)
How Are Things Looking For Liberato Cacace At Empoli For The 2022-23 Serie A Season? (Football)
Flying Kiwis – August 16 (Football)
Juniors Ferns Antics at the 2022 FIFA Women’s U20 World Cup (Football)
Sean Marks Is Finally Putting His Foot Down At The Brooklyn Nets (Basketball)
2022 Blackcaps Tracker: Santner & Sodhi (The Firm) (Cricket)
2022 Blackcaps Tracker: (Devon) Conway The Machine (Cricket)
2022 Blackcaps Tracker: Matt Henry Keeps Gathering Wickets (Cricket)
Scotty’s Word
Will Young continues to score runs in England, now in one the one-day format with Northamptonshire. Young is fresh off a century (104*) and this was his third score over 80 in six games, all of which follows his impressive mahi in County Championship with Northants. Young's last game of County cricket before switching formats featured scores of 61 and 43, then Young started the One-Day Cup with scores of 91 and 81. That amounts to 50+ scores in three consecutive games and Young now has centuries in both competitions, plus five 50+ scores total.
2021 County Championship (Durham)
7inns, 278 runs @ 39.71avg, 2 x 100.
2022 County Championship
10inns, 449 runs @ 44.90avg, 1 x 100, 3 x 50.
2022 One-Day Cup
6inns, 314 runs @ 62.80avg/115.86sr, 1 x 100, 2 x 50.
The Blackcaps squad touring West Indies seems like the best white ball squad possible, although it skews towards T20 skills with that World Cup looming. Neither Young or Henry Nicholls are likely to crack T20 World Cup squad selection and they are two intriguing blokes given they are not with Blackcaps in West Indies.
The first ODI vs West Indies saw Aotearoa roll with Martin Guptill, Finn Allen, Kane Williamson, Devon Conway, Tom Latham and Daryl Mitchell as the batting unit. Allen didn't play the T20Is even though that's his best format and his presence as ODI opener, along with the steady ascension of Daryl Mitchell and even Michael Bracewell clutters matters for Young/Nicholls.
Young and Nicholls are the blokes from the ODI series against Ireland who dropped out, opening space for Williamson and Conway. Glenn Phillips played ODIs on the European tour before Mitchell took his place for ODIs vs West Indies. Jimmy Neesham has only played T20Is in Europe and the Caribbean. This is all part of increased Blackcaps depth.
Young and Nicholls have gone about their mahi differently this year. Nicholls has played 10 games of cricket since late March and five games since the end of the Aotearoa summer. Young has already played six ODC games, plus six County games and his various Blackcaps fixtures. Both are competing for similar opportunities in Blackcaps batting line ups and they could feature in the ODI squad to face Australia - a checkpoint that will provide some ODI clarity.
Meanwhile an Aotearoa A squad was announced to tour India next month. Any trip to India puts the spinners in focus and Joe Walker will be a funky bloke to track, along with Rachin Ravindra's development. Ravindra has slipped out of the Blackcaps and is joined by Mark Chapman, Dane Cleaver, Jacob Duffy and Michael Rippon as recent Blackcaps settling into the 'A' level.
Three Kiwi-NRL teams to follow closely...
Raiders are 9th on the ladder and face Knights this round. Knights stink (there's always a team worse than Warriors) and Raiders have Joseph Tapine returning, plus Matthew Timoko continues to impress at centre. Corey Harawira-Naera offers plenty of energy off the bench, perhaps playing himself into an Aotearoa Kiwis World Cup squad along with Timoko. Tapine was the best middle forward in the NRL before suffering an injury and he leads a fun Kiwi-NRL trio at Raiders.
Roosters are 8th and face Tigers. Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Joseph Manu are two of the best players to ever come out of Aotearoa, both are firing as Roosters chase finals footy. Roosters should be too slick for Tigers and despite having just two Kiwi-NRL lads in their team for this week, they are mandatory viewing.
Eels are 7th and face Bulldogs. Dylan Brown, Isaiah Papali'i, Ofahiki Ogden and Marata Niukore are all named for Eels and unlike Roosters who know how to win at this juncture, Eels tend to slip up during finals footy. Ogden's getting an opportunity late in the season at the expense of Makahesi Makatoa, adding size to the Eels pack. Brown is always the low key joker to focus on and his touches are highly influential.
Both Redcliffe teams are 3rd in their Q Cup/U21s and they have games against Northern Pride this weekend. While they aren't named, lads like Rocco Berry and Adam Pompey will probably play reserve grade and this shouldn't be overlooked as development wrinkles considering the pandemic niggle.
Berry has two tries, three try assists, five linebreaks and three offloads in his last three games as well as 130+ metres in each game. Pompey has only played the last two games with a try in each game, four linebreaks and 13 tackle busts. Exactly what you want from players in reserve grade who are fizzing for NRL minutes.
Ali Leiataua, Valingi Kepu, Jacob Laban, Lleyton Finau, Demetric Sifakula and Zyon Maiu'u are named for Redcliffe U21s. Northern are 13th and only Western Clydesdales are below them (Sebastyan Jack named again this week), so this should be a win for Redcliffe. With NZ Warriors returning to NSW Cup next year, expect these lads to step up to reserve grade and given how they have helped Redcliffe U21s this year, they seem to be a good crop of juniors.
Wildcard’s Notebook
The Flying Kiwis in Europe wagon is fast losing passengers, sorry to say. That’s the case every year as it’s actually really hard to qualify for Champions Leagues and such (I know, you’ll be shocked to hear that), so nothing to freak out about. But it is a slight bummer to see a few more of what was a very hefty collection of NZers competing in continental qualifiers bow out of their various endeavours.
This week’s Flying Kiwis wrap (shameless plug here but the FKs yarns have been so stacked lately, do us a solid and share them around so as many people as possible are reading about the exploits of Aotearoa’s best footballers each week) had a chunk on Nando Pijnaker and Max Mata exiting the Europa Conference League quals in the third round, their Sligo Rovers (Ireland) team losing 5-2 on aggregate to Viking FC (Norway). No shame there as it was the club’s best ever European run. Won two aggregate ties to advance as far as they did. Won more individual European games this season than they’d ever won combined in their history. Max Mata scored a couple goals in the process. Can’t complain.
Joe Bell and Brøndby (Denmark) certainly can though. They went out on penalties against FC Basel (Switzerland) after a 2-2 draw after two legs. It felt at the time like a 1-0 lead from the home game wasn’t gonna be enough and it definitely wasn’t. Ah well. Thus ended Aotearoa’s ECL participation this term.
But thus began our Champions League participation. On Wednesday morning, Marko Stamenic got a cheeky couple minutes off the bench for FC København (Denmark) as they beat Trabzonspor (Turkey) 2-1 at home in the Champions League playoff round. It’s not UCL proper... but it’s pretty close. The club are now a mere ninety minutes away from the UCL group stage and even if they lose then they’ll still be consoled with Europa League groups. That what happens when you play for the defending champions of Denmark, you get a bit of a headstart on the competition.
Stamenic would almost certainly be included in the 25-man squad list for FCK in whichever competition they advance to – the only friskiness is that there are a lot of overseas players at this club and pretty sure Stamenic doesn’t qualify as one of the eight locally trained players since he’s only been there two years. Confident he’ll still make the cut regardless.
By the way I tweeted out the video of Stamenic being subbed on the other day but a couple hours later it got a copyright claim on it and our account was suspended until I ticked a few terms and condition boxes. Probably BT Sport’s fault. Seems dumb that you can’t share footage that doesn’t even have right’s holder in this country but oh well. Here’s a screenie instead…
Then this morning the qualifiers for the Women’s Champions League got underway. All the teams in the first round are split into four-team mini-tournaments with semis and a final with the winning team advancing to the second round. Daisy Cleverley doesn’t have to worry about that as her HB Køge (Denmark) team skip automatically through to that second round. They’ll have a two-legged tie starting in a week or so to see if they qualify for the group stage.
This is where it got tough, as Indi Riley’s Fortuna Hjørring (Denmark) had a really difficult group and were dropped 2-0 by Eintracht Frankfurt (Germany) in their semi this morning. Haven’t watched the game back yet but it appears that Riley played as a wingback in a back five, on the right side of course. They still get a third/fourth playoff against Kristianstads (Sweden) for some reason. That game’s on Monday. But FH are effectively one and done in Europe this season.
As are Meikayla Moore’s Glasgow City (Scotland). This game I couldn’t watch because it was paywalled but Moore played the full ninety against Roma (Italy) on her continental debut. Roma took the lead early but Glasgow City struck back before the half. However two second-half goals set them on the way to a 3-1 defeat and they’ll face Servette (Switzerland) in their consolation match in a couple days.
But the dream lives on for Vic Esson and Rangers (Scotland). Lovely surprise to see Esson get the start here too. Big game player called upon for the big game. Rangers beat Ferencvaros (Hungary) 3-1 in a game that was at times frantic but Esson and company held out to advance. Took the lead early from the penalty spot then added a second at the start of the second half. Were dragged back to 2-1 later in the match but then scored late to win the thing which sets up a final against tourney hosts PAOK (Greece) on Monday. Huge yarns.
I’ve just polished off a Wellington Phoenix yarn after their Aussie Cup R16 victory over Melbourne City (link right here, friend). In it I did write a bit about squad depth but I wanted to break that down further while it’s fresh in my mind so here ya go.
As it stands they’ve hit the minimum squad size with the signing of Yan Sasse and have supposedly got an import striker on the way too. Not skimping on the import spending this time, filling out all five spots. Four of them in attacking areas. They’d still be able to add another couple local players to the group although I kinda think they won’t bother since Uffie’s happy using academy players to fill things out.
Maybe a local defender, either a right back or centre back to clarify Tim Payne’s role a bit more - that’s the best guess I’ve got anyway. Still leaning towards the import striker being the only addition before the ALM kicks off though.
This is how things stand as far as contract lengths go…
2024-25: David Ball (I), Scott Wootton (I), Tim Payne, Oskar van Hattum, Sam Sutton, Finn Surman
2023-24: Ben Old, Alex Paulsen, Ben Waine, Kosta Barbarouses, Bozhidar Kraev (I)
2022-23: Nick Pennington, Josh Laws, Callan Elliot, Clayton Lewis, Oli Sail, Alex Rufer, Steven Ugarkovic, Lucas Mauragis (loan), Yan Sasse (I)
Note that Ufuk Talay’s contract runs out after 2022-23 as well. Sort of a major narrative heading into the new season, if we’re being totally honest.
And here’s my best guess at a depth chart based on the usual 4-2-2-2 shape…
GK - Oli Sail | Alex Paulsen
RB - Tim Payne | Callan Elliot | (Marco Lorenz)
CB - Scott Wootton, Tim Payne | Josh Laws | Finn Surman
LB - Sam Sutton | Lucas Mauragis
CM – Clayton Lewis, Steven Ugarkovic | Alex Rufer | Nick Pennington | Josh Laws | Sam Sutton | (Jackson Manuel)
AM – Bozhidar Kraev, Yan Sasse | David Ball | Ben Old | Oskar van Hattum | (Noah Karunaratne)
FW – [Import 9], Kosta Barbarouses | David Ball | Ben Waine | (Riley Bidois)
Academy players who’ve been a part of the two Aussie Cup matchday squads are the ones in brackets. Tim Payne is hard to place - he’s either a top choice RB or a top choice CB. Leaning towards centre-back as it stands but a Callan Elliot injury would make that a moot point in a hurry.
David Ball’s also hard to place. I think he’s most likely gonna play as a ten but Kraev and Sasse make it tricky to crack the starters in that spot. Good chance that Sasse in particular is eased in, which may give Ball a free run to begin with. He’s been injured and overseas recently though which might not help his cause. Regardless, Ball’s a bloke who’s gonna give it a hundy whether he’s starting or off the bench and tbh his sore foot probably won’t be arguing if he can get some more rotation in there. Ball has been top three in total minutes in each of the last two seasons.
Meanwhile the Welly Nix Wahine have taken a break from announcing signings as the coaching staff and a good chunk of players were off at the U20 World Cup. They’ve got some decisions to make though. So far their depth chart looks like this...
GK - Lily Alfeld | Brianna Edwards
RB - ???
CB - Kate Taylor, Mackenzie Barry
LB - ???
CM - Betsy Hassett, Izabel Gomez
AM - Alyssa Whinham
FW - Chloe Knott, Paige Satchell, ???
Paige Satchell gets to be a straight swap for Grace Jale. Well, almost... because Jale played mostly as a left winger last term whereas Satchell is at her best on the right which was where Ava Pritchard played. But Betsy Hassett’s addition means that one of last season’s kiwis has to miss out on the second year. Also Alyssa Whinham was on a scholarship deal in year one so that’s another kiwi who’ll miss out. So far Grace Jale is the only player to have actually signed elsewhere (including Aussies). With the U20 World Cup in the past now, would expect a bit more momentum on this front in the coming weeks.
Welly Nix current off-contract list from 2021-22:
Grace Jale (Canberra United), Zoe McMeeken, Charlotte Lancaster (schol), Te Reremoana Walker, Cushla Rue, Ava Pritchard, Jordan Jasnos, Hannah Jones, Grace Wisnewski, Kelli Brown, Saskia Vosper, Annabel Martin, Talitha Kramer