Effective Immediately

White Ferns vs Australia, NZers in the A-League, Warriors (and Bulldogs) NRLW recruitment, Tauranga Whai win Tauihi basketball & more

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Podcast

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Reading Menu

• Taking Stock Of New Zealand's 2024 Test Cricket Transition & Future Forecast (Cricket)

• White Ferns vs Australia 2024 Rose Bowl Preview (Cricket)

• This New Zealand Breakers Season Is Capitulating Before Our Very Eyes (Basketball)

• 2024 Women’s National League – Team of the Season (Football)

• 2024 Men’s National League – Team of the Season (Football)

• 2025 New Zealand Women Warriors Signings Tracker: Third Wave (Rugby League)

• 2024/25 Kiwi-NRL Summer Guide: Sharks, Dragons, Raiders, Storm (Rugby League)

• Five Funky New Zealand Warriors Storylines Heading Into The 2025 NRL Season (Rugby League)

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Scotty’s Word

Tricky spot today with White Ferns and the New Zealand 11 playing, while we deliver this newsletter and a big ol' podcast. White Ferns lost the second ODI of their Rose Bowl series vs Australia after the first game was rained off and while I'll wait to see how the third ODI play out to update the insights, Bella James had an immediate impact at the top of the order.

James looked fairly comfy in her debut for Aotearoa and this is how I have described others like Nathan Smith for Blackcaps, so peep the trend of these younger players being well equipped for international cricket. James hit the only six for White Ferns in their shortened innings, scoring 27 runs @ 81.81sr. Across the two major brackets below, only three other batters are operating with strike-rates over 80.

2024 ODIs

Lea Tahuhu: 15avg/136.3sr

Jess Kerr: 9avg/106.5sr

Sophie Devine: 41avg/94.4sr

Bella James: 27avg/81.8sr

Women's Championship

Lea Tahuhu: 16avg/105sr

Sophie Devine: 36avg/99.6sr

Jess Kerr: 12avg/98.6sr

Bella James: 27avg/81.8sr

Women's Championship overlaps with ODIs this year so the same players are scoring the fastest for White Ferns. In a tough year of ODI fixtures, White Ferns don't have much batting oomph. Of the seven batters who have scored 100+ runs this year, Devine is the only one with a strike-rate over 71.

Similar vibe with the ball as Fran Jonas is the only bowler below 5rpo. Anyway, James looked comfy and offers confident strokes which stands out even among the established White Ferns batters let alone the younger ones.

An NZ 11 will play a T20 against Sri Lanka today and the team selected is a lovely summary of the Blackcaps pipeline. Henry Shipley, Ben Lister and Joe Carter will play their first major games of the summer, which is especially funky considering Kyle Jamieson just returned to bowl for Canterbury A. We know Jamieson is awesome, but don't overlook Shipley and Lister who have the same funky skills as the other emerging bowlers and have already played a few games for Aotearoa.

Henry Shipley

ODIs: 23.9avg/5.5rpo (8 games)

T20Is: 70.5avg/10.8rpo (5 games)

FC: 29.1avg/3.4rpo

LA: 37.4avg/5.8rpo

T20: 24.8avg/8.4rpo

Ben Lister

ODIs: 39.5avg/6rpo (3 games)

T20Is: 28.7avg/8.5rpo (12 games)

FC: 25.7avg/2.7rpo

LA: 32.9avg/5.3rpo

T20: 24.3avg/7.8rpo

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The rest of the NZ 11 squad is a snapshot of young talent.

Katene Clarke has struggled for runs in the last 12 months but is a frisky T20 hitter, joined by Muhammad Abbas, Matt Boyle and Bevon Jacobs as the emerging batters. Callum McLachlan is the wicket-keeper and the ND seam duo of Kristian Clarke/Matt Fisher get an opportunity to add themselves to Aotearoa's impressive seam bowling depth.

Adithya Ashok is the main spinner and Hong Kong international Raunaq Kapur offers spin as well. Like Mark Chapman, who played for Hong Kong and went to Kings College in Auckland, Kapur went to Christchurch Boys High School and has been making waves with Sydenham in Christchurch.

He seems like a hearty Hong Kong lad so I don't wanna assume that he will flip into representing Aotearoa, plus this game is being played in Lincoln so Kapur is nearby. Kapur is the only player in this squad who hasn't played domestic cricket in New Zealand and usually when these kind of selections are made, they forecast an exciting talent.

I have been covering the NZ Warriors Women signings, as well as Bulldogs entering their first season of NRLW with a strong Aotearoa flavour. Bulldogs added Moana Courtenay to their squad and she comes from North Harbour rugby union, as a North Shore club player who has represented Tonga.

In the latest NZWW signing tracker, I typed out how NZWW aren't doing anything unique in building their squad. That's not a negative note directed at NZWW but a reminder to folks that NRLW teams love Aotearoa's league/union talent. NZWW recruitment fits into the wider theme of how NRLW teams recruit from Aotearoa and this is most evident in the number of NRLWahine Bulldogs have signed, as well as the wide mix of sporting backgrounds.

Here is the Bulldogs NRLWahine crew so far...

• Alexis Tauaneai: Wainuiomata

• Angelina Teakaraanga-Katoa: Auckland

• Sarahcen Oliver: Petone

• Maatuleio Fotu-Moala: Otahuhu

• Shaniece Monschau: Mt Albert

• Shaquaylah Mahakitau-Monschau: St Peter's Cambridge

• Shannon Muru: Mt Albert

• Paea Uilou: Katikati

• Moana Courtenay: North Shore

St Thomas of Canterbury College offered lovely information about where some of their rugby league players have settled with NRL pipelines. The full list includes Jordan Riki and other upper tier lads like Oliver Lawry and Felix Fa'atili, as well as updating some of the murkier junior recruitment moves.

Ezekiel Faga-Ieti and Jackson Stewart were in the NZW system earlier this year but have now shifted to Knights and Roosters respectively. NZW still have plenty of STOC lads in their system, including my favourites in Lennox Tuiloma, Bishop Neal and Christiano Elia. The key thing here is that this one school in Christchurch has a long list of players in NRL systems and the growth of South Island rugby league is evident in how a wider mix of NRL teams are now recruiting from the region.

NZW still have a connection to STOC with coach Andrew Auimatagi in the mix. Bulldogs have the link with Canterbury Rugby League. Roosters now have the base at Rolleston College. Meanwhile there are a multiple Kiwi-NRL juniors from Christchurch in the Sharks, Knights and Sea Eagles systems.

• Jordan Riki: Broncos

• Montel Lisala: Dolphins

• Oliver Lawry: Sea Eagles

• Felix Fa'atili: Sharks

• Richie Tupuailei: Sharks

• Ngaheke Nepata: Sharks

• Josaiah-Ekkehard Neli: Storm

• Sosaia Alatini: Bulldogs

• Cheldon Hayward: Bulldogs

• Ezekiel Paulo: Sea Eagles

• Ezekiel Faga-Ieti: Knights

• Xavier Lynch: Knights

• Jackson Stewart: Roosters

NZ Warriors

• Lennox Tuiloma: Warriors

• Jason Salalilo: Warriors

• Meihana Pauling: Warriors

• Micah Sula: Warriors

• Isaiah Savea: Warriors

• Bishop Neal: Warriors

• Kenny Lafituanai: Warriors

• Caleb Fidow: Warriors

• Christiano Elia: Warriors

Musical jam…

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Wildcard’s Notebook

The Tauranga Whai are the Tauihi champions for 2024. They beat the Tokomanawa Queens 90-71 in the final on Sunday, bursting out to a double-digit lead early and then nursing that the rest of the way with their relentless and rapid style of play. They shot better than the Queens, they rebounded better, they moved the ball better, they committed way fewer fouls... it was a really impressive and comprehensive grand final performance from start to finish. They didn’t even even ease up enough to let the fringe players get any late minutes.

Morgan Yaeger of Australia was the star with 19 points and 4 assists but there were a trio of kiwi players heavily involved in setting up this victory. McKenna Dale showed her ability to go nuts as a scorer as she got her team going with 16 points on 4/9 shooting including three triples. Plus there were great impacts off the bench from Jade Kirisome (10 points on 4/6 shooting) and Kaylee Smiler (6 points on 2/4 shooting).

Stella Beck did her best to keep the Queens in the contest, logging 13 points and 4 assists in her 37 minutes of action. But it wasn’t nearly enough. Fantastic mahi from the Whai. Deserving champs – they’ve been the form team over the back-half of the season, building brilliantly after being 1-5 at the halfway stage.

Keep the emphasis on McKenna Dale’s strong performance and what she has to offer the Tall Ferns moving forward, especially if she can get those long shots to drop this consistently in a black singlet. The national team is stacked with strong defenders and plenty of athletic cutters and slashers but reliable outside shooting has been an enormous weakness in their last few tournaments. Dale struggled with that herself when she shot 3/17 at the Pre-World Cup qualifying tournament in August.

Recent Tall Ferns Three-Point Shooting

2023 Asia Cup – 31/113 at 27.4%

2024 Olympic Qualifying – 9/70 at 12.9%

2024 Pre-WC Qualifying – 18/67 at 26.9%

That’s kinda horrendous so yeah good to see some seeds being planted in the domestic league. Tahlia Tupaea had an excellent campaign coming back from injury for Northern Kahu which very much fits within this theme too. Keep the emphasis on that... but I do still want to (reluctantly) repeat myself about the excess of imports in the competition. Here are the minutes for kiwis during the 2023 final...

Northern Kahu in 2023

Krystal Leger-Walker (36:04), Tera Reed (34:40), Penina Davidson (30:22), Azure Anderson (11:28), Awatea Leach (7:31), Ashleigh Udesike (1:37), Elianna Tuaiti (1:37), Jaycin Tini (1:37), Ritorya Tamilo (1:37) – 63.28% of total minutes went to NZ players

Tokomanawa Queens in 2023

Grace Hunter (31:49), Tegan Graham (29:34), Josie Trousdell (26:28), Kalani Purcell (21:01), Paris Lokotui (12:58), Parris Mason (4:22), Eva Langton (1:37), Te Araroa Sopoaga (1:37), Naomi Sopoaga (1:37) – 65.53% of mins

Now the minutes for kiwis during the 2024 final...

Tauranga Whai in 2024

McKenna Dale (32:10), Jade Kirisome (14:07), Kaylee Smiler (14:00) – 30.14% of mins

Tokomanawa Queens in 2024

Stella Beck (37:32), Tiarna Clarke (22:59), Jacinta Beckley (0:44) – 30.63% of mins

So the extra imports have more than halved the time spent by NZers on the court in the NZ domestic league. Some of that is probably good, as imports do raise the bar and drive the locals to a higher standard, but there’s probably a middle ground that suits better. Grace Hunter going from played almost 32 mins in last year’s final to being a DNP in 2024 is the most jarring spot. Pahlyss Hokianga, Eva Langton, and Lauryn Hippolite have all been in or around the Tall Ferns system in the past twelve months and they were also unused bench players in the final. But, hey, it’s a young competition that’s been very open to experimentation so far so everything’s adaptable.

A very weird week of A-League footy just went down. Auckland FC finally tasted defeat and they did so in shocking fashion, blown out 4-0 at Mt Smart by a visiting Western United side (that also drew 1-1 in Wellington against the Nix in week one). They were 3-0 down after 34 minutes and looked way off the pace. Western Utd hit them hard and early and didn’t let AFC settle into their grind-it-out identity, leading to carnage that Auckland FC weren’t able to overcome. The absence of Dan Hall is looking stark right about now – Auckland FC conceded once in 540 minutes with Hall on the pitch and have conceded six times in 180 minutes without him. Take out Cam Howieson as well and the depth is getting stretched.

Very much a flush the dunny and move on game. Steve Corica called it complacent and he’s probably right. It’s all about how they respond next time... in a tricky game away to Central Coast. A bit of extra defensive cover wouldn’t go astray in the upcoming transfer window though, and to that point the team just today released Joey Champness as announced in a terse statement on the club website that didn’t even bother to edit out the formalities...

Club Update Re: Joe Champness

Date: December 23 2024

Statement attributed to: Nick Becker, CEO

Auckland FC has today (December 23) come to a mutual agreement with Joe Champness for him to depart the club, effective immediately. Auckland FC would like to express its thanks to Joe for being part of the early foundations of the club and his contribution to date. The club would like to wish Joe all the best for the future in both his football and personal endeavours.

82 words in total for those who track such things. Champness joined AFC as one of their more experienced ALM players with only Scott Galloway, Jake Brimmer, and Dan Hall having played more games in the comp. But JOWIC’s had a strange career. For a variety of reasons he’s had three separate stints of at least eight months without playing and for a guy who is only 27 years old that’s a potential red flag. Champness hardly played in preseason due to injury and hasn’t been glimpsed since. There are rumours of a bust-up behind the scenes, who knows, but ultimately there were dudes in that squad who wanted it more than him. Can’t say that’s a surprising outcome. Hopefully they use the open spot in the squad on a new central defender.

Meanwhile the Wellington Phoenix also had a stinker losing 4-1 away to Western Sydney Wanderers. They were 2-0 down after 10 minutes thanks in part to mistakes from rookie defenders Isaac Hughes and Corban Piper (who, to their credit, turned in pretty solid shifts the rest of the way). They made some good adjustments and pulled it back to 2-1 and did look like an equaliser was a distinct possibility but two late goals blew it out in the other direction.

Three defeats in a row for the Nix. Not good. Granted, they were without Marco Rojas for this match on top of the Stefan Colakovski long-term injury. The fact that David Ball still didn’t get summoned suggests that we’ve probably seen the last of him. But there were bright cameos from a couple young attackers instead. Nathan Walker got to play in his actual position as a wide forward and showed some very nice signs. As did Luke Brooke-Smith on debut as the new youngest ever Welly Nix player. Great strength and speed for a bloke his age and with a couple of slick touches in there too. Very exciting. That’s what we’ve been waiting to see.

Wellington Phoenix Youngest ALM Players

1. 16y 199d - Luke Brooke-Smith (22 December 2024 vs Western Sydney Wanderers)

2. 16y 250d - Gabriel Sloane-Rodrigues (9 March 2024 vs Melbourne City)

3. 17y 128d - Liberato Cacace (2 February 2018 vs Sydney FC)

4. 17y 242d - Alex Rufer (9 February 2014 vs Newcastle)

5. 17y 244d - Kosta Barbarouses - (21 October 2007 vs Central Coast)

By the way, another player absent from the last few squads is Oskar van Hattum. Dunno what to make of that. Excluding own goals, the Nix scored 38 goals last season and between Ben Old, Oskar Zawada, Bozhidar Kraev (who scored against them for WSW), and Nico Pennington they’ve lost exactly half of them. Now David Ball (0 goals, 2 assists) and OVH (1 goal, 3 assists) seem to be on the outer. They’ve basically remade their entire attack with Kosta Barbarouses and a recalibrated Tim Payne the only continuations. In hindsight, this is more of a rebuild than first impressions suggested (especially with Finn Surman and Alex Paulsen’s departures on top of that) and perhaps that weekly consistency just cannot be expected until later in the season when things settle down.

In much happier news, the Wellington Phoenix Women won 2-0 against Sydney FC.

This win means they’ve taken 10 points from four games after previously losing three in a row.

Lara Wall has started all four games of this unbeaten run, and been on the bench for all three defeats.

Grace Jale’s goal against Sydney FC was her first since November 2023. She scored three in her first four matches for Perth Glory then didn’t score again afterwards. She scored seven times in four games at Oceania Olympic qualifying but also missed a few big chances in there (including a penalty and a few headers). This goal ended a 21-game A-League streak between goals.

Safe to say that Jale really needed that one... especially at a time when there’s a whole plethora of potential Football Ferns attackers trying to break into the squad for the next time they play. Think Hannah Blake, Maggie Jenkins, Deven Jackson, Kiara Bercelli, and even Nix teammate Emma Main.

Zoe McMeeken scored the other goal, her first in the A-League. She’s another one who has come into more prominence during the last four games. She’s played 460 minutes during which the Nix have scored six and conceded three. In the other 170 minutes they’ve scored twice and conceded five times.

Also fun about all that was the goalkeeping error from Tahlia Franco that allowed Jale’s shot to creep inside the post. Those are wicked ones when they bounce right in front of the keeper, especially after torrential rain which caused the game to be delayed for around 45 minutes at half-time. Guts to Franco... but we’d obviously rather see Brianna Edwards playing. Edwards left the Nix to join Sydney FC as their number one but was dropped after conceding five goals in four games, one of which was a penalty. Franco’s taken over and has conceded six times in three games, all defeats. Bring back Bri, please.

Another point of note: Kelli Brown took (and scored) the 90+6^th minute penalty for Perth Glory that earned a 1-1 draw away to Western Sydney. Clutch moment and while the keeper did get a big hand to it... Kelli Brown delivered for the occasion. Her third goal of the season with Perth. Things are going good there.

There’s not going to be time to write a Flying Kiwis roundup this week because of festive reasons, but there are a few sneaky ones going down. Sarpreet Singh scored a penalty in a UD Leiria victory. Jana Radosavljevic also scored for CS Maritimo so it was a good week for NZers in Portugal. Ryan Thomas made his first PEC Zwolle appearance for two months following an injury setback and he did so on his 30^th birthday. They were playing against Oskar Zawada’s team and drew 1-1 with Zawada scoring the goal. That doesn’t mean anything to Thommo but Nix fans will be curious to know that after his shocking start with RKC Waalwijk, OZ has scored five goals in his last five matches. Zwolle had a potential winning goal disallowed right at the end which the referee’s office later admitted was the wrong decision. Matt Dibley-Dias has suffered his own injury setback though, one which could possibly mean an end to his Northampton Town loan since they don’t seem to want to play him anyway.

That’ll all get the article treatment next week when I’m freer. But here’s another one for ya... Ronan Wynne (younger bro of Deklan) has been drafted by Atlanta United into the MLS. Wynne had a very strong college career but then that hardly means anything when it comes to the draft. Trying to make sense of that whole pathway for NZers has proven too confusing to bother with but here’s something from the University of Denver about Ronan Wynne’s pedigree...

University of Denver men's soccer redshirt senior outside back Ronan Wynne was selected 53rd overall (Round 2, Pick 23) by Atlanta United in the 2025 MLS SuperDraft on Friday afternoon. A two-time Summit League Defensive Player of the Year, Wynne played and started in all 23 matches at outside back for the Pioneers in 2024, seeing 1978 minutes of action. Wynne had two goals and six assists for 10 points in the campaign, including a goal in the NCAA Quarterfinals against UMass on December 7. Wynne was part of a Denver defense that was one of the top programs in the country in shots on goal against per game, and a defense that ranked eighth in the country in goals against average at 0.775. In his career, Wynne played in 70 matches, making 69 starts for Jamie Franks side. Wynne produced 21 career points on four goals and 13 assists, including one game-winning goal.

Wynne was one of two players from his school picked up this year, the other being his fellow defender Ian Smith. Wynne’s played age grade stuff for NZ, including being part of the U23s that qualified for the last Olympics (he’s 23yo now). He seems to be very highly regarded in the college scene so hopefully that translates to actually getting signed by Atlanta, because getting drafted does is it gets you a glorified trial, effectively. Still gotta earn a contract. Nothing’s signed yet.

Ronan Wynne becomes the 13^th NZer drafted into MLS through the College Draft. It used to be a great pathway, with the likes of Ryan Nelsen, Duncan Oughton, and Andy Boyens making it through. But most of the thirteen didn’t go very far and RW is the first NZer drafted for five years.

NZers Selected in MLS College Draft

As for women in the NWSL College Draft, it’s Katie Bowen all by herself. There have only been eight NZers to play NWSL and two of them (Macey Fraser & Milly Clegg) debuted last season. Hence why the top female prospects no longer stack up USA colleges like they once did, since there’s a far clearer pathway to the NWSL through the A-League than there is the college draft... which makes sense in a league where international roster spots are limited so you’d much rather know what you’re getting.

Musical Jam...