El Niche Cache
January 25, 2020
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Reading Menu
Sean Marks Has Now Completed His Team Of Brooklyn Nets Supervillains (NBA)
Monday Morning Dummy Half: Canberra Raiders Love Aotearoa (NRL)
Aotearoa Warriors Diary: Starting 2021 (NRL)
2020/21 Aotearoa Super Smash: Update #6 (Who's Next In Line?) (Cricket)
27fm Sounds of Aotearoa: Mid-January 2021 (Music)
2020/21 Blackcaps Test Summer Notebook (Cricket)
Previewing An Unprecedented (But Exciting) Aotearoa Breakers Season (ANBL)
Big up to a couple of our 2019 Patreon whanau…
Jason Huang and Steven Ensslen.
Scotty’s Word
Wee bit of a crazy evening yesterday in the UFC as Dan Hooker got lit up by Michael Chandler, then Dustin Poirier lit up Conor McGregor. For those wondering about McGregor and don’t tune into the UFC frequently, a loss for McGregor is all good as regardless of his international starpower there are really good fighters in the UFC. Plus, when you’re not competing consistently, the UFC moves along quickly in terms of fighting skills and for the casuals; McGregor will keep on grooving.
Poirier did defeat Hooker in June last year and he’s a pretty cool dude - well worth investing some time and making him your favourite non kiwi. For Hooker though, he needs to chill as he has been taking hefty damage for a bunch of ruthless fights. These fights have earned Hooker the reputation of being among the ‘toughest’ in the UFC and at the same time, one can be too tough for their own good. Hooker is in the position because of the wars/fights he has been in, various fight of the year contenders and yet that’s also a word of caution.
In 2018, Hooker went three rounds vs Edson Barboza. Three rounds of Barboza kind of destroying Hooker and Barboza won by ‘punches to the body.
Then Hooker had two good wins, before fighting Paul Felder early last year in a five round battle that resulted both heading to hospital in Auckland. Hooker won, but many had that fight going either way and then Hooker lost another five rounds of niggle vs Poirier. To put the battle with Poirier in context…
vs Felder: 232 significant strikes landed (combined).
vs Poirier: 308 significant strikes landed.
Ugh. Then Hooker - who is notoriously known as being excessively tough with a rugged chin - was knocked out in the first round vs Chandler. Not good and Hooker won’t return to Aotearoa until late February. Ugh.
The story of Hooker’s loss was Chandler targeting Hooker’s body early, lowering Hooker’s hands and then Chandler came over the top with his left hand. In 2:30mins Chandler landed 4 of 6 strikes to the body, Hooker landed 0 of 1 and that, combined with Chandler’s wrestling threat saw Chandler pose a threat at the lower level (of the body). Hooker kept circling to avoid that wrestling, Chandler wrapped a left on to Hooker’s noggin.
Hooker has a lot going on. He owns his own gym (not CKB), has a family, has a podcast and has built thing up outside of his UFC work. If Hooker can’t compete for a title belt and is going to keep on taking severe damage, it may not be worthwhile.
Sophie Devine has played three 50+ scores in three games of Super Smash cricket, with a strike-rate of 228.70. This is pure Devine, a top-three T20 batswoman in the world and someone who clears the men’s boundaries when she’s cracking sixes. Put a White Ferns jersey on Devine, against Australia or England and I’d be fizzing for Devine destruction. In the Super Smash though, it’s weird.
Devine has hit 14 sixes - no other player has more than 4 sixes.
Devine’s strike-rate is 228.70 - next best strike-rate is Amelia Kerr’s 148.05sr.
Two of those knocks have come vs Otago Sparks - the best Otago bowler is ranked 14th.
I’m only weary of this because Devine plays at such a high level. Devine dominated the Women’s Big Bash League (3rd in runs, 493 runs @ 51.11/126.37sr) and the WBBL is a couple notches above Super Smash for quality, so this is a case of Devine the lovely bully. For the upper-tier of Aotearoa women’s cricket, hold fire until we see the White Ferns in action before we get too crazy in celebrating these Super Smash performances. The White Ferns desperately need these type of performances to get back among the world’s best.
Another Super Smash deep cut here as Martin Guptill’s in a low key puddle. Here’s how Guptill’s summer is looking…
Plunket Shield: 5inns, 127 runs @ 25.40avg/40.70sr, 1 x 50.
vs West Indies T20I: 2inns, 39 runs @ 19.50avg/150sr.
Ford Trophy: 3inns, 76 runs @ 25.33avg/93.82sr.
vs Pakistan T20I: 3inns, 46 runs @ 15.33avg/124.32sr.
Super Smash: 3inns, 44 runs @ 14.66avg/100sr.
16inns batted for Guptill and one score over 50. I’ve yarned about Kane Williamson, Will Young or Henry Nicholls’ multi-format form and it’s the opposite here for Gup.
Wildcard’s Notebook
I will get around to doing a full length Welly Nix write-up in the next day or two, I promise, but some dickhead did me dirty by scheduling three Premiership games and a Phoenix match all on the same Sunday that I was signed up to do this mountain run thing and then the following morning was a 6am start for Manchester United versus Liverpool in the FA Cup fourth round – Bruno! - and frankly I don’t know where all the time is going and basically I’m exhausted right now. Already hours late on this email so apologies for that as well.
But might as well drop some Welly Nix thoughts here to start with. The thing that’s bugging me about that loss to Newcastle Jets is the same thing that bugged me about the draw with Macarthur and it’s got nothing to do with refereeing decisions... it’s this trend of the Nix to dominate spells of matches without getting the goals they ought to be getting to reflect that. It’s something that they definitely had about them last season too, largely getting away with it up until the end of the season when it caught up with them big time down the stretch. Add these three games to the end of last season and it’s eight matches in a row without a win for the Wellington Phoenix, in which time they’ve scored five goals.
Safe to say that’s not good enough. Especially not when a distinct lack of Steven Taylor in the backline is going to probably mean the defensive record isn’t as good as it once was so for a team that won a lot of games by a 2-1 scoreline last time... there’s a scary risk of those becoming 2-2 or 2-3 this time around. To put it precisely: the Wellington Phoenix absolutely have to learn how to convert their chances if they’re gonna make this a successful season.
How exactly they’re planning to score those goals is probably gonna be the focus of my next piece. This should be a team that can strike in a few different ways... one of which was on display early on against Newcastle as the logic behind the apparently controversial selection of Jaushua Sotirio over Clayton Lewis shone through with a few swift balls over the top of the Jets’ backline for Sotirio to run onto. The problem with Sotirio however is that he’s brilliant at getting into great positions and terrible with the end product. He’s a bit of a scapegoat because of how those two abilities align, along with his infamous list of misses in the elimination final loss to Perth back in August, but he’s far from alone in this drama.
Last season’s squad featured six players in the top sixty for shots per 90 minutes. Only Ulises Davila, the team’s top scorer, was in the top twenty there. That’s not terrible. It could be better but mostly what that says is that the Nix share the shots around. Except that you might recall they didn’t exactly share the goals around as they were very reliant on Davila (including from the penalty spot) and Hooper to put them away. Compare these shots per ninety mins records, with league standings in brackets, to the goals per shot ratios and it’s stark reading with one exception..
Ulises Davila - 3.70 Sh/90 (4) | 0.09 G/Sh (44) | 13 goals
David Ball – 2.57 Sh/90 (22) | 0.08 G/Sh (52) | 5 goals
Reno Piscopo – 2.41 Sh/90 (32) | 0.03 G/Sh (93) | 2 goals
Jaushua Sotirio – 2.28 Sh/90 (35) | 0.12 G/Sh (28) | 4 goals
Callum McCowatt – 2.27 Sh/90 (36) | 0.03 G/Sh (95) | 1 goal
Gary Hooper - 1.79 Sh/90 (45) | 0.36 G/Sh (1) | 8 goals
The one exception being Hooper’s brilliant conversion rate although the problem with Gary Hooper moving forward is a simple one: he doesn’t play for this team any more. Neither does Callum McCowatt although his conversion rate was terrible anyway – which was a weird one given how utterly prolific he has been at every other level of his career, granted he does seem to be a bit profligate for FC Helsingor these dyas too. David Ball’s numbers are okay but he still scores a lot less than he should compared to the rest of the league, whereas poor old Sotirio actually goes a little better with his finishing. Of course there are other factors involved here and Sotirio isn’t one like Davila who’ll take a hopeful pop from outside the box if he gets impatient, Sotirio tends to shoot in clearer moments so he should be scoring at a high conversion rate.
But I’ll write more on that in a few days so let these ideas simmer for ya.
ISPS Handa Men’s Premiership Team of the Week – Week 9
GK – Danyon Drake (Eastern Suburbs) - In a week in which there were 20 goals scored across four games it was tough to pick a goalie who stood out. In the end I went with Drakey because though he didn’t have a lot of saves to make, he made the ones he needed to, particularly that one off Awad in the second half, to keep it close enough for his brother to set up a late, late equaliser.
RB – Ahmad Othman (Hawke’s Bay United) - Likewise tough to think who should get this nod too... not sure if Othman was better this week than he has been the last couple but for a makeshift right wingback he’s really delivered for HBU and he hasn’t made one of these teams yet so gotta recognise the mahi. He did score Hawke’s Bay’s second goal too so it’s not like this is unwarranted selection.
CB – Ben Mata (Team Wellington) – Just another commanding performance from the dude. Defender powerfully, knocked the ball around with plenty of guile, and was super unlucky not to score on a couple occasions as he got forward for set pieces. Still thinking of when Raf de Gregorio said he “rose like a salmon” before heading one onto the crossbar.
CB – Brian Kaltack (Auckland City) – More of the same from Brian Kaltack. Does he even need a blurb to say what he did? Firm and flawless defending for ninety minutes and were it not for baffling own goal from his CB mate Adam Mitchell late on (who might have otherwise got this spot ahead of BK) it would have been for a match-winning clean sheet.
LB – Rory McKeown (Team Wellington) – Surprised to see this is only his second TOW but okay. The Northern Irishman had one of those days against the WeeNix where it just didn’t look like he could be contained. Any time he wanted to he was firing a cross in and that led to assists for the second and third goals as well as plenty more that could have been not to mention a close shot or two of his own. Overwhelming from McKeown.
CM – Cory Mitchell (Canterbury United) – Popped up with a goal in the first half and then for about 75 minutes it was yet another masterclass in defensive shielding from midfield from Mitchell. The game then went utterly bonkers as Waitakere scored three quick goals (with ten men no less) and the Dragons then responded for a draw but that wasn’t Mitchell’s fault. He was excellent.
CM – Manny Achol (Hawke’s Bay United) - Two weeks ago there’d have been a lot of: “Who?” ringing out at this selection but a lovely cameo off the bench last week was rewarded with a starting gig here and Achol went right on ahead with his clever passing and deceptive physicality and set up a pair of goals on the way to a thrilling 4-1 win away to Hamilton Wanderers. What an impact the bloke’s had already.
CM – Andy Bevin (Team Wellington) – Mate, when he plays like this you might as well pack your bags and go home because there’s nothing you can do about it. The WeeNix couldn’t contain him and Bevin made them pay as he put his fingerprints all over things before logging a couple late goals and either an assist for the third or a hat-trick depending on your definition of an own goal. Officially it’s gone down as an oggie though.
FW – Garbhan Coughlan (Canterbury United) – Playing a little deeper these days but as involved as he’s ever been, getting on the ball earlier in moves and turning with runners ahead of him. It’s been great to watch but the Irishman hasn’t lost his knack for goals either – his team blew a seemingly comfortable 2-0 lead to be trailing right near the end so Coughlan went on ahead and smacked in an 89th minute equaliser.
FW – Sam Mason-Smith (Team Wellington) – A couple more goals to the tally as the TeeDubs rallied from two down to win 5-2. Simply too big and strong for the WeeNix lads to handle, it was bullying stuff. SMS coming into some serious form as we close in on the business end of the season.
FW – Dylan Manickum (Auckland City) – Played out wide rather than through the middle for a rare time this season and we might see more of that from now on because this was all class from DM. When he’s running at defenders like he gets the space to do from those areas, it’s danger. Scored a very deserved fourth of the season for ACFC to show for all that added threat.
