El Niche Cache
March 1st, 2020
Podcast
TNC Variety Show - Episode 5
iTunes | Spotify | Youtube | TNC
The Niche Cast: Niggliness (Wellington Phoenix/Parker vs Fa)
iTunes | Spotify | Youtube | TNC
Reading Menu
Aotearoa Blackcaps vs Australia: Two Wins, Lots Of Fun (Cricket)
Forecasting Forward To Aotearoa Blackcaps In World Test Championship Final (Cricket)
Aotearoa White Ferns ODI Woes Deep Dive (Shout Outs Brooke Halliday) (Cricket)
All Aboard The Waine Train: Analysing Ben Waine's First Start Of The Season (Football)
Monday Morning Dummy Half: Aotearoa Kiwis Halves and Fullbacks (NRL)
Aotearoa Warriors Diary: Breaking Down Warriors Business (NRL)
Scotty’s Word
Major White Ferns yarn…
Blues Dude…
First up win over Wellington Hurricanes. This felt as though it was built around power and x-factor, of which Auckland Blues have plenty and the Hurricanes have in isolation. Ardie Savea and Ngani Laumape are incredibly fun players to watch, their quality on a pitch full of Aotearoa’s best rugby players is kinda bonkers. Ardie’s not the biggest but plays with a certain intensity that isn’t matched, while Laumape’s power is freaky. Chuck in Asafo Aumua’s running abilities at hooker and wow.
Two games, four hookers playing…
Asafo Aumua (Hurricanes): 2 tries, 56m, 5 beaten defenders.
Kurt Eklund (Blues): 4m.
Codie Taylor (Crusaders): 1 try, 43m, 1 beaten defenders.
Ash Dixon (Highlanders): 6m.
Don’t view the above through the lens of winning (Taylor won, Aumua didn’t), but through the footy style lens. One of my favourite coaching nuggets is playing a style of footy that aligns with the strengths of players - focus on asking players to do what they do best. Dane Coles was the best at this type of hooking play and this allowed the Hurricanes and All Blacks to add the wide-running Coles style into their playbook.
Here’s Aumua getting the ball out wide for his try:
Of course, Taylor and the Crusaders are the best so they’ve taken it to a nek level. Taylor’s try came from a mid-field set up, hitting a short ball from Sam Whitelock #tryassist:
Taylor has the same skillset, allowing the All Blacks to maintain this attacking aspect. Now we’re seeing Aumua doing this at a high level and that’s crucial to the All Blacks given how impactful Coles/Taylor have been; the All Blacks can only continue along that path with that type of hooker.
Eklund and Dixon are more limited in their running abilities (plus passing and offloads). This forces the Blues and Highlanders to go about their funk differently, which for the Blues, leads me to Hoskins Sotutu. This dude is a monster and the Blues loose-forward trio of Sotutu, Akira Ioane and Dalton Papali’i tickles my toes. Chuck in Patrick Tuipulotu and while the Hurricanes had those pockets of x-factor, the Blues forward pack has power, mobility and skill to make up for no dynamic hooker etc.
What comes to mind when thinking about Sotutu? Running.
Sotutu had the fewest run metres of the six starting loose forwards in this game. His opposite Devan Flanders had 13m, Ioane had 39m and Sotutu had 9m. This excites me because Sotutu is slick in how he impacts a game and has shown a splash of class on top of the dynamic running.
Sotutu had the most passes of any Blues forward with 5. He also made 4 tackles without a miss and had 3 lineout catches, while lock Gerard Cowley-Tuioti was the only other Blues forward to get lineout ball (5 takes).
This has me pondering how Sotutu will develop through Super Rugby. Savea is the best loose forward in Aotearoa, while others like Ioane will get more love for their dynamic running. There are hearty signs that Sotutu has a wide-range of footy skills to go with his physical abilities and as the Blues Dude, an All Blacks trio of Sam Cane, Savea and Sotutu is enticing.
Also…
The Blues starting 15 vs Hurricanes featured 13 players from the Blues region. Whanganui’s Stephen Perofeta and Palmerston North’s Otere Black were the only two from outside the Blues region. That seems a little bit cool, considering all the noise about Auckland’s player drain. Couple of notes from that…
Nepo Laulala is from Auckland, went to Wesley College near Pukekohe. Anything south of Manukau falls into the Counties Manukau region, which for cricket then falls into Northern Districts and for rugby falls into Waikato Chiefs. So not ‘Blues region’ but Auckland enough.
Sam Nock is from Whangarei, went to school at St Kents in Auckland. Northland’s part of the Blues region.
Lydia Ko…
Fantastic start to 2021 for Ko, tied-2nd at the Gainbridge Open. As always, don’t buzz about wins, we’re all about Ko consistently being top-20 and top-10.
Ko finished 2020 with three top-10 finishes in her last four tournaments, the other result was tied-13th. Now that is four top-10 finishes in her last five tournaments.
I’m also nerding out at Ko’s average driving distance.
2018: 245.38m.
2019: 245.47m.
2020: 254.41m.
2021 (Gainsbridge): 247.13.
For one year, Ko added 10m to her average driving distance and it kinda helped. Gainsbridge may have been a shorter course and other variable are at work here, but Ko’s hovered around that 245m mark for much of her career and then had a spike last year, before dropping back down.
Favourite hip-hop project from February…
Wildcard’s Notebook
When time allows, I’ll write some more on this in deeper detail but for now let’s roll through a few ideas from that Joseph Parker vs Junior Fa fight. A lot of people counted Junior Fa out before the fight had even begun, there were vibes of that from the Parker camp at times too with the Chisora chat (although most of the underratedness was from overseas folks – especially in the UK where Parker is a known quantity and Fa is anything but), however if you read my preview or listened to our podcasts leading in then you’ll know that was not a theme within TNC Towers, that’s for sure. Junior Fa was an outsider for sure but he had plenty of things in his favour coming in here.
Ultimately those advantages couldn’t outweigh the major disadvantages that he had though. Fa was really good in fighting to a plan that limited and frustrated Parker. He fought at close range, getting into the clinch, not letting Parker’s hand speed catch him out (for the most part). Landed quite a few heavy shots, probably more than Parker but I haven’t found any stats yet. More than held his own physically.'
But he just didn’t have the big-fight experience of Parker who had gone a dozen rounds several times in his pro career whereas Fa has never gone even ten. The first round was very close. The next three were probably all Parker’s before Fa came on strong in the middle rounds. Neither guy could hurt each other enough for a knockout so those early rounds were crucial and it was Parker who got out in front on the cards in that way, just as it was Parker who kept on throwing those touch-punches that the judges notice throughout. Fa landed the heavier blows but he didn’t land enough of them and lost too many rounds that way.
Which is something he spoke about afterwards, saying that if he had the fight over again he’d have unleashed a bigger volume of punches now that he realises that he has that kinda capability. And if he did that then you never know, that suddenly becomes a winnable fight for him. As it was, Parker probably won about 7-8 rounds. I’d have been generous with a 115-113 score, possible 116-112 (I wanna watch it back and see before committing to anything like that). It certainly wasn’t eleven rounds to one like one ridiculous judge scored it... how is it that there’s always that one wonky card in boxing/MMA? This is Fa’s American promoter right here...
Funny thing about it is that this was Junior Fa’s first defeat yet probably his best performance. And damn what an endearing relief to see him talking afterwards about the confidence he’s taken from this fight, the incredible experience that he clearly loved every minute of, all the while accepting the decision without having a moan. Such a rare thing in boxing. Literally nobody else that Parker has beaten on the cards has taken the defeat nicely. Andy Ruiz still thinks he won. Carlos Takam was frustrated (possibly in himself as much as the judging though). Hughie Fury was the point at which things got stupid, Parker cruised in that one. But Junior Fa took it all in his stride like a champ.
This is what Eugene Bareman had to say afterwards, which sums a lot of this up...
“The big nice clean shots, they were very even. I probably had Junior up on those. It was the work that Joseph did in between that isn't necessarily effective in terms of hurting Junior but what it is effective in doing is separating the two. If the judges have to differentiate the fighters, that's what they look for.”
Yeah, pretty much.
As for Joseph Parker... looks like we’ll get that Dereck Chisora scrap next up and hopefully fairly soon as Parker has been talking about trying to get into a rhythm of fighting fairly regularly after nearly a year off before this bout. Then after that, well there’s a WBO interim title fight coming up between Oleksandr Usyk and Joe Joyce probably gonna happen – the top two ranked challengers on the WBO ranks. Usyk is a guy who stepped up from cruiserweight a little while back and took out Chisora in his last effort, while Joyce is a British fella won a silver medal at the 2016 Olympics and has soared up the ranks since going pro. Parker/Chisora against the winner of that one? That sounds like a plan... although the boxing scene changes so fast you can’t really plan for anything.
And now for something completely different...
Men’s Premiership Team of the Week – Week 14
GK – Nick Draper (Waitakere United) – Here ya go, didn’t make the TOW at all until a few weeks ago and has now made three outta the last four. Draper made several crucial saves to keep Waitakere in the game away to Auckland City... right up until his team equalised in the 91st minute to ensure their season still has a heartbeat. Wouldn’t have been possible without Draper’s glovework.
RB – Luke Tongue (Canterbury United) – Hasn’t always looked fully comfortable at right back, being a midfielder by trade, but he sure did against his old WeeNix team. Spent heaps of time on attack, linking up nicely and whipping in some mean crosses. Quality game from the Tonguemeister.
CB – Adam Mitchell (Auckland City) – It’s definitely not ordinary procedure to pick a dude who only played half a game... but Mitchell was the next thing to flawless in the first half for City as they led 1-0 at home. They then took him off at the break to save him for the semis and they ended up drawing 2-2. Only half a game but the difference between those two halves was stark.
CB – Ben Mata (Team Wellington) – If you’re up against an aerial bombardment from set pieces and crosses, which the TeeDubs were as Hamilton kept on winning corner kicks, then Ben Mata and Brian Kaltak are the two most accomplished dudes you can have defending. Mata just wins everything, man. Time will tell if he holds this spot for the semi-final, he hasn’t played as regularly lately (maybe an injury?) but he was fantastic this week. Had a fantastic season, in fact.
LB – Adam Davidson (Hamilton Wanderers) – Also not ordinary procedure to pick a defender who conceded three goals including giving away the penalty for the winning goal. But to tell you the truth this was a tough week with only three games and a few of the teams taking it rather easy. Most weeks Davidson might not have made it but he did have a pretty effective game (penalty aside). Didn’t back down from the physical challenge of Hamish Watson or the slippery challenge of Jack-Henry Sinclair... all while serving up a genuine outlet in attack.
CM – Gerard Garriga Gibert (Waitakere United) – Big players own the big moments and while it was only a simple tap-in, it was GGG there in the right place at exactly the right time to score the equaliser in stoppage time that extended Waitakere’s season (at least until the end of Lockdown 4.0). Other than that, typically tidy from Triple G as a much improved second half saw Waitakere become the only team all season to take a point away from Kiwitea Street.
CM – Leon van den Hoven (Waitakere United) – Didn’t score a goal like GGG did but was possibly even better in that midfield, charging forward as Waitakere kept the pressure on in that second half. Carries on a run of fine performances from LVDH since he started finally getting his opportunities in his favoured midfield role.
CM – Lyle Matthysen (Canterbury United) – What a beautiful way to say haere ra to the Dragons as the franchise won 5-1 in its final ever game. Matthysen scored the first with a sexy little chipped finish and was influential throughout. Though not quite as much as the next bloke...
FW – Garbhan Coughlan (Canterbury United) – Player of the round. Coughlan’s had to do plenty of hard work without much reward this season but he’s done it all supremely and, well, the prizes finally came in the final round. Coughlan was involved in everything for CU. He scored a hat-trick, the third of them from a penalty that he won, as well as setting up the first goal and hitting the framework on two other occasions. As I say: everything.
FW – Sam Mason-Smith (Team Wellington) – Another hat-trick hero and it doesn’t get much better than scoring from almost half-way. An experience he can share notes on with his buddy Hamish Watson. Those two scored 20 goals between them this season, the most potent strike-force of all. SMS really found his form in the second half of the campaign and, like Coughlan, this was a crowning week for him.
FW – Derek Tieku (Hamilton Wanderers) – Wanderers might have lost but only just. And Tieku was huge throughout, his hold up play has rarely looked better and he created a heap of chances to score including getting on the end of a wonderful team goal that was his 12th of the season... earning him a share of the Golden Boot with Hamish Watson. It’s only fair.