El Niche Cache
September 25, 2020
The Niche Cast Podcast
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Reading Menu
Setting the Kiwi-UFC Scene For UFC 253 (UFC)
The Wildcard’s NFL Picks - Week 3 (NFL)
White Ferns In Australia: The Squad (Cricket)
Admiring The All-Format Magnificence Of Late-Career Ross Taylor (Cricket)
Kiwi-NRL Encyclopedia: Round Rua Tekau (NRL)
Monday Morning Dummy Half: Exploring The Kiwi-Storm (NRL)
Flying Kiwis – September 22 (Football)
Union Bargaining, Broadcasting Dramas & Player Departures: Welcome To The Welly Nix’s 2020 Offseason (Football)
27fm Weekly Niche Cache Playlist: September 21 (Music)
Scotty’s Word
UFC 253 will go down on Sunday and it’s on Pay Per View - remember that Israel Adesanya probably gets PPV points as a headliner and the biggest star on the card and given the mana of City Kickboxing, those funds will likely be filtered through to all the CKB whanau. To the best of my knowledge, PPV points are reserved for the biggest UFC stars and as Adesanya’s profile grows, stuff like this only increase.
There is great value in buying the PPV as there are four kiwi fighters on the same card; Adesanya, Kai Kara-France, Shane Young, Brad Riddell.
Adesanya also signed a deal with Puma and this is another rung in Adesanya’s kiwi sports star status which many kiwis overlook. For context, Neymar made the switch from Nike to Puma in recent weeks. My favourite rapper/business man Nipsey Hussle was signed to Puma prior to his death, J Cole’s with Puma and Puma’s been busy getting to culture/music/celebrity partnerships led by Kylie Jenner. Virat Kohli leads Puma’s cricket group along with KL Rahul, LaMelo Ball will enter the NBA as part of Puma’s stable and Manchester City is a Puma team.
Ariel Helwani@arielhelwaniIsrael Adesanya is getting love in his home country of Nigeria. Here is a billboard promoting his title fight this weekend.4:17 PM · Sep 22, 2020158 Reposts · 1.94K LikesThat’s among all the rest of Puma’s sponsorships and Adesanya isn’t just a UFC champ, or managed by the same management as Conor McGregor, or sponsored by Puma; he’s all of the above and no kiwi athlete has such international sports power.
White Ferns warm up game…
The White Ferns will play two T20I games this weekend against Australia and played a warm up fixture yesterday. The one thing that caught my eye from this game was the Ferns’ top-five batswomen and their performances which weirdly reflect where each of these players are at coming off the T20 World Cup earlier this year.
Suzie Bates isn’t in the best form, but solid. Amy Satterthwaite picks up where she left off before having a baby and Sophie Devine’s amazing. The two younger batswomen who have enjoyed rather un-challenged selections in Lauren Down and Maddy Green can’t pick up the slack. The lack of contributions from players not named Bates, Satterthwaite and Devine has seen the Ferns hit a plataeu recently and this is what intrigues me the most about this series vs Australia.
Lydia Ko hits pause…
The LPGA Tour is taking a wee break, meaning it’s time for me to compile the Lydia Ko September Mixtape. Ko is essentially the 12th best player in the world right now (ranked 12th in Race to CME Globe and Prize Money) and Ko has already won $352k having played eight events vs last year when Ko won $444k in 24 events.
Ko’s driving distance has gone from 245.47 (m/yards) in 2019 to 255.94 this year and that’s fairly amazing, however it has come at the expense of Ko’s driving accuracy; 70.08% in 2019 down to 64.10% in 2020.
Weird times in NRLW…
There will be five players from Aotearoa playing for the NZ Warriors Women as I’ve mentioned before and now we have a few other squads to suss out. Raecene McGregor is the only Kiwi Fern in the Broncos squad - she’s based in Australia, same with Nita Maynard at the Roosters.
That’s four clubs and I’ve got seven players from Aotearoa/Kiwi Ferns involved at this stage. Stink. Given all the other players are Australian, the gap between the two nations in women’s sport increases.
Kiwi guide to IPL cricket…
I’m going straight to the Most Runs and Most Wickets charts via Cricinfo to suss out kiwi IPL involvement - not super comprehensive but the basics are offered. Right now Trent Boult and Jimmy Neesham are the only kiwis on either chart (top-50 in either aspect) and I’ll keep an eye on who pops into these charts over the course of the IPL.
Boult’s got 3w @ 17.66avg/7.22rpo from 7.2ov and that’s got Boult ranked tied-8th in wickets.
Neesham is on the chart, but in the group with no wickets; 0w @ 6.50rpo in 2ov.
Wildcard’s Notebook
Looks like another player’s departed the Wellington Phoenix. Word is that Callan Elliot has signed with Xanthi in the Greek second tier, a club that has a pretty fascinating story about it actually. They got embroiled in some ownership dramas and were docked points which, combined with financial dramas around the pandemic, led to them getting relegated as they were forced to release most of their players and finish the season with academy guys.
At the end of the season they were then purchased by Aussie businessman and president of Sydney Olympic Bill Papas who promptly hired Tony Popovich to be the new head coach. There’s an appeal to try and get them reinstated in the top flight but either way it’s a fascinating one for Callan Elliot to get amongst.
Callan Elliot, whose debut for the Welly Nix came in that legendary 8-2 win over CCM and whose final game was the Elimination Final defeat against Perth Glory... who were coached by Tony Popovich. Funny, that. He definitely made a big impression on Nix fans with his performances late in the season at right back and apparently he made a big enough impression on Coach Poppa too. Elliot won’t be the only A-Leaguer that ends up at Xanthi – Josh Brillante and Matt Jurman are also expected to be confirmed there, as well as Popovich’s two sons (lol) – which makes this a sneaky nice transition for him into Euroball. Sorta like Libby Cacace joining Kevin Muscat’s team... still waiting on Cacace to get his STTV debut by the way. They’re easing him in.
It’s easy to slip this into a concerning narrative about the Phoenix’s player exodus but I’m struggling to see how that works. Elliot was off contract in a position where the Nix have the most depth of any area on the part. Tim Payne and Louis Fenton are still contracted. Brandon Wilson can play right back. Callan Elliot would’ve been the best suited of all of them to move to the left and try replace Cacace but I don’t see how anyone can be upset to see him signing in Europe and his departure doesn’t really weaken the squad at all outside of a little depth.
He’s the fifth player to officially leave the club this offseason after Libby Cacace, Steven Taylor, Gary Hooper, and Callum McCowatt and there’ll be a few more where they came from... but that’s cool. Yet another example of the Phoenix developing young kiwi players capable of making that step up. Plenty more where Callan Elliot’s come from that only need the chance. If Elliot never got a run late in the season he might well have been released anyway, surplus to requirements, and currently passing his resume around at Premiership clubs instead. Weird how the world works, aye?
Good news in the Europa League as all three remaining clubs with kiwi involvement made it through to the final playoff round before the group stage. Only one of them played but that was expected. Ryan Thomas had another quietly influential game in the midfield for PSV as they won 5-1 over Mura (Slovenia) to make it through comfortably. Thommo was called “the brains of PSV” by a telly pundit last weekend referring to how he instigates their passing game and he’s had an excellent start to the new season.
Elsewhere Copenhagen got through with a 3-0 win over Piast Gliwice (Poland). Marko Stamenic is a while away from playing for the first team yet, he’s busy scoring goals in youth cup finals for the U19s, but the further that team goes the better. Six guaranteed games in the group stage and perhaps by the end of the year, with a little luck and some injuries, he might sneak onto a bench or something, who knows. Gotta be in it to win it.
Same goes for Nando Pijnaker who is in the first team picture at Rio Ave but hasn’t made his debut yet, sitting on the bench for one league game but he’ll naturally have to bide his time. But Rio Ave did sneak through to the next round as they beat Besiktas away from home on penalties. Tyler Boyd played 70-odd minutes for Besiktas before he was subbed off (forgot to mention Thommo was subbed on 74 mins for PSV too, with the game already won). Pijnaker wasn’t in that squad for Rio Ave.
Next round it gets extra funky with a place in the group stage on the line. PSV Eindhoven have been drawn away to Rosenborg (Norway) in a trickier game than they’d have liked. Copenhagen are at home against Rijeka (Croatia). And Rio Ave... well, they get to host AC Milan. Which means if Nando does sneak onto the pitch in that one then he might have been marking Zlatan Ibrahimovic were it not for this...
Never change, Zlatan.
Hey, here’s some good news...
Details will be confirmed next week but we already basically know what it’ll look like:
West Indies – 2 Tests, 3 T20s
Pakistan – 2 Tests, 3 T20s
Australia – 5 T20s
Bangladesh – 3 ODIs, 3 T20s
Not to mention the White Ferns, who are currently in Aussie on tour, will have ODI series against both Australia and England at home and a T20 tri-series including both of them. The first home games will be the West Indies, whose squad will half-arrive in early November and then the rest of them in mid-November after the IPL concludes (including a few kiwis also returning). There’s a two week quarantine that follows that so the first T20 against the Windies won’t happen ‘til late November. But the Plunket Shield is expected to start in mid-October so that’s awesome... not that there are literally any details about it yet other than teams announcing squads a while back. Still, the summer of cricket. It’ll be an odd summer under the circumstances but at least we’re gonna get one. It’ll be on Spark Sport too. More weirdness/adjustments. Flexibility is the salve to the modern condition.
Finally, a couple new albums out that absolutely sizzle. IDLES have dropped their latest set of punkish belters, perhaps not quite as stacked as their incredible previous album though it’s packed full of righteousness and the back half really peaks. Osees have a new one out as well (aka Thee Oh Sees) which is a bit of a return to their churn and grind hard rock peak, albeit with enough funk in there to keep things weird and unexpected.
I’m sure it didn’t get any votes on the revised Rolling Stone Top 500 Albums thing they just did but the more I listen to it, the more I’m convinced that Thee Oh Sees’ 2015 epic Mutilator Defeated At Last might be the finest rock album ever crafted. It’s perfect. And of course I’m still going hard on new ones by Troy Kingi, LA Witch, Fontaines DC & Bully. Don’t listen to the boomers, there’s more great music coming out now than at any point in history. It’s just harder to keep up with it all.