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2020/21 Plunket Shield: Devon Conway's Chasing Pack (Cricket)
Monday Morning Dummy Half: Aotearoa Storm (NRL)
There’s (Finally) Doings Afoot in Welly Nix-ville (Football)
The Quotable Steven Adams – 2019-20 Edition (NBA)
Lydia Ko Mixtape: September/October, 2020 (Golf)
27fm Sounds of Aotearoa: Mid October 2020 (Music)
27fm Weekly Niche Cache Playlist: October 26 (Music)
Scotty’s Word
All Blacks brush aside Australia.
Rolling through these All Blacks results vs Australia is less about trying to big up my rugby ego and more about exploring a though experiment based on what I saw in the first game. That 16-16 draw sparked a minor sporting journey for me as I had my ideas as to why the All Blacks were all good (aside from not kicking the droppie) and these ideas seemed to counter much of the general consensus, especially coming out of Australia.
Over the weekend, Aotearoa smoked Australia for the second game in a row and the obvious conclusion to the thought experiment is layered. First and personally, with time and effort invested, I can trust my rugby eye. Much like the idea of missed tackles and pondering why the All Blacks can force a high missed tackle count (missed tackles were not a factor in the big win in the third game), the more important conclusion comes from pondering key aspects of All Blacks rugby. Words that come to mind: fast, skillful, offloads, shifting, brutal, tempo, direct.
A new All Blacks year, new coaching staff and the culture is the same. This ties everything in together and supreme talent is also a factor. The idea around two #10s is trendy right now, although thinking back to the Jack Goodhue stuff I shared last week, that was Goodhue at first-receiver passing to Beauden Barrett out wide: neither falls into the two #10s blueprint. I view it more as being about ensuring the best players are impacting games and this is the best way to get both Barretts and Richie Mounga into the same team - those three and Goodhue would start in any international rugby team.
Crucial in the supreme talent bucket is the 60 minute rotations. Other teams copy this ‘fresh legs’ concept from the All Blacks that we started to see a few years back, although other teams don’t have the talent in those positions to take the game further. After 60 minutes (roughly) the All Blacks bring on players to add to the game, while their opponent brings on players to try and keep up.
What should be concerning for teams around the world is the settled forward pack for Aotearoa. Again, everything starts up the guts in either code and however you want to slice the All Blacks forward pack (the whole group, not just starters) they are still a forward pack that handles set-piece well and will be hunting for turnovers.
Israel Adesanya vs Jan Blachowicz??
All Blacks thought experiment worked in my favour, the Israel Adesanya vs Robert Whittaker one not so much. The UFC appears more keen on pumping up Adesanya’s star power by booking the fight vs light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz and this will see Adesanya move up a weight class. This is clearly a play to get Adesanya comfortable moving up in weight, where the Jon Jones fight is waiting.
Eugene Bareman and the City Kickboxing would not have sniffed out the fight vs Blachowicz if they didn’t see a clear path to victory.
Adam Milne signed to play BBL!
Last week I shared a yarn talking about BBL looking for some kiwi talent to bolster their 2020 tournament and then we have Adam Milne signing with Sydney Thunder - where Shane Bond is head coach. So the floodgates of kiwis to BBL will open and it will be glorious?
Hold up. Milne had to give up his CD Stags contract to be released to play BBL and that’s the route players have to take as long as NZC are plugging their T20 schedule at the same time as BBL. Milne may earn as much, perhaps more for his BBL stint than his Stags contract would have paid to make that decision easier and that’s something to keep an eye o if other players catch that buzz.
Milne can definitely still play for CD Stags and a bunch of players have made a similar move in recent years, while still popping up for Plunket Shield games. No domestic contract means the financial stability is gone, yet if you’re T20 gig is worth a similar amount, the player can still play for match payments in domestic cricket.
Quick Women’s Big Bash League note
Amelia Kerr and Maddy Green won the BBL last summer with Brisbane Heat, this summer they haven’t started so well..
Amelia Kerr: 1w @ 43avg/6.61rpo in 6.3 overs.
Maddy Green: 40 runs @ 13.33avg/114.28sr in 3inns.
Quick Plunket Shield note
Here are Kyle Jamieson’s First Class season bowling average since 2015/16 and Henry Cooper’s FC season batting average since 2016/17 - both of which allude to consistency and trending well…
Kyle Jamieson
27.33 - 18 - 21.85 - 37 - 23.71 - 8.80
Henry Cooper
29.11 - 40.90 - 36.23 - 49.90 - 51.66
Wildcard’s Notebook
You want goals? We’ve got goals.
Katie Rood scored a goal.
Ryan Thomas scored a goal.
Jana Radosavljević scored a goal (and also set up a goal).
Maaaarvellous Flying Kiwis content right there.
Happy days in domestic footy too as the Women’s Premiership kicked off this weekend. Canterbury look like the team to beat (as usual) after belatedly getting it going in a 4-1 win over a typically stubborn Southern side. Northern only lost to the Cantabs on penalties in the grand final last season but they had a hiccup to start, unable to take their chances against Capital and then conceding a late equaliser to draw 1-1. And Auckland served up the goals with a 9-1 win over Central. WaiBOP had the bye.
Good footy and even better for having Sky Sport Next streaming all the games on their YouTube channel. That’s part of a deal that’ll see all the Men’s and Women’s Premmy games livestreamed with the exception of the one Men’s game per week and the playoff games for both that were already going to be broadcast on Sky telly. Which remains the case. So every game will be viewable. 75% or so of them will be free streamed.
I’ll be honest, there was a little trepidation in my heart at reading that news. Typical NZ Football that it only emerged the day before the first game but that wasn’t the drama... the drama was me trying to think how in the hell I’m supposed to find the time to watch all of this football. Hey, I’ll give it a good crack but damn.
Umm but I do have a little more trepidation now having watched a game and a half of the stuff this week... not to bite the hand that feeds or anything here but some of that Sky Next stuff does come across like Sky are trying to boost their reputation by treating local sports as a charity case. In a way that’s fair enough since a) they can offer a standard of production that basically nobody else can, and b) they’re not gonna be making money directly from showing these games so it basically is charity for them.
That slightly condescending vibe (or is it just me?) doesn’t matter if the ends still meet. Serve up a quality stream and I couldn’t care less about the motivations – I’m naturally sceptical about any and all capitalistic ventures anyway, even though the majority are harmless/beneficial (gotta watch out for those others though). And Sky TV probably owe it to kiwi football too given some of the trash they’ve dealt up with broadcasting deals in recent years (albeit under different management for both parties) – I’m talking the cost of that partnership for already cash-strapped clubs/league/governing body, the year they clamped down on their exclusive rights to stop teams from sharing their own clips of games (even untelevised ones), etc. It hasn’t always been a generous relationship.
So what did we get for week one of the Women’s Premiership? Well the ugliest part of it all was the state of the pitch at McFetridge Park. No idea what’s going on here but sorry there’s just no way that a national league match should ever take place on a field like this...
Water restrictions in Auckland probably have to take a lot of blame but surely they could’ve played somewhere else? How did the refs genuinely allow that? Do teams not do pitch inspections too? This is the top level of domestic football in this country and it’s embarrassing they have to play on that kinda surface. As a player you’d be forgiven for feeling you’re not being taken as seriously as you should be when you stroll out for kick-off on a beast like that (not being taken as seriously as you should be is, sadly, an ongoing default for most female athletes).
That broadcast was a shambles too. Only the one camera on offer and it wasn’t high enough off the ground to give you much of a glimpse of the opposite side of the field. They did have a commentator, as with all three of these games but, without being a dick about it, that didn’t really help – I sorta thought this’d be a great opportunity for Sky to build up a cartel of fresh young commentators but then Sky’s usual approach is that you can’t get in the commentary box for a major sporting event unless you’re an ex-player. Still reckon there’d be a few keen amateur sports-talkers they could help towards commentary aspirations (*actual trained broadcaster* Narelle Sindos was pretty good on the Auckland game but she’s a pro so different situation there) but we’ll see how it goes.
Those are smaller frustrations compared to the main one which was that the Northern-Capital stream evaporated late in the first half with no explanations. Someone didn’t top their data up or something. The broadcast just went dead. They picked it up with a new stream for the second half but I’d given up by then (granted, I did have a game of indoor to go play... we won, cheers for asking).
The Canterbury-Southern game was a much better product. Two cameras allowed them to switch to a closer view of the action on occasion plus they also had a replay element... not always timed perfectly but it still adds a level of professionalism to the broadcast that wasn’t there for the Northern-Capital game. Having two commentators was pretty useful too, means there’s a bit of back and forth rather than just listening to players’ names as the ball gets passed along the backline (I reckon one of the best things a solo commentator can do sometimes is just be quiet and let the game unfold... be a conduit to the action, not a catalyst). Plus, it’s a relatively minor thing but this was the only game where they actually had a clock on the score graphic. Those kinda things make a big difference to the viewer experience though.
So, mildly disappointed to tell ya the truth. South Island Derby was done beautifully and that was the standard I was expecting from the Sky Sport banner (still well below telly standard but obviously we had to be realistic)... but the other two games weren’t much better than what you’d get if the clubs did their own live streams. And if that’s the standard then I can only hope this ain’t costing NZF much cash. But it’s only week one and the broadcast deal was confirmed extremely late so hopefully just a few short-notice teething issues.
Here’s hoping... coz accessibility for our national leagues should be the bare minimum if they’re gonna thrive (you can’t expect an audience without any visibility). It’s a topic we bang on about at The Niche Cast a fair bit but that’s only because it is, after all, almost 2021 now and there are no barriers to these things other than motivation and ambition.
Sky don't provide the commentators for the Next programme - they are all volunteers for NZF I'm told.