El Niche Cache
March 26, 2020
Podcast
TNC Variety Show - Episode 10
The Niche Cast - The Peter Principle (Blackcaps/NZ Warriors)
Reading Menu
Flying Kiwis – March 24 (Football)
The Premmy Files – Canterbury United & Hawke’s Bay United 2020-21 Season Reviews (Football)
Canterbury Owns Aotearoa Cricket: Canterbury Women Debrief (Cricket)
The Curious Case Of Kyle Jamieson and Finn Allen With Royal Challengers Bangalore (IPL) (Cricket)
Scotty’s Word
NZ Warriors Preview Notes…
Couldn’t get around to a full banger NZ Warriors vs Canberra Raiders preview, so I’ll serve up a couple preview notes here. First of all, I’m enjoying these kick-off times and while the Warriors will have the odd 10pm NZT start, they’ve begun this season with the 8pm/5pm NZT slot. Lovely.
No Chanel Harris-Tavita, Sean O’Sullivan comes into halves.
Unfortunate for CHT and this takes away one of the funkier aspects of Warriors footy to start the season as CHT was a pleasure to watch when tackling blokes. CHT’s left boot will be missing and despite CHT lacking … ‘form’ … with his kicking (slightly off target, not so much touch) the mere presence of a lefty kicker changes the halves dynamic. O’Sullivan didn’t play reserve grade last week either - Paul Turner did.
Then again, CHT wasn’t doing an excessive amount of halves work in the first two games and played a fairly basic role. O’Sullivan just has to execute his basic role and the Warriors have various pieces to absorb O’Sullivan into their work; hefty forward pack, ball-playing forwards, offloads, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck.
Offloads
Warriors: 6th - 22.
Raiders: 14th - 11.
Post Contact Metres
Warriors: 4th - 1,308m.
Raiders: 5th - 1,240m.
Handling Errors
Warriors: 16th - 12.
Raiders: 2nd - 25
What’s the Warriors Forward Pack Upto?
Last week the Warriors competed well, blow for blow with a strong Newcastle Knights forward pack. Similar vibe here vs Raiders and the challenge is making metres, steaming down field while being able to slow the Raiders down. Key factor here is Bayley Sironen who starts in the middle when Tohu Harris is playing right edge; Sironen leads the Warriors in missed tackles with 8 (27th) and no other Warrior has more than 6 missed tackles.
Bunty Afoa comes into a starting role and before the Harris/Ben Murdoch-Masila switch happens around the 30min mark, the Afoa/AFB/Sironen trio will need to hold up the middle.
Blackcaps Changes…
When thinking about the Blackcaps, I struggle not to dive deep.
Almost a year ago, I threw up the ‘Summer of Transition and Transformation’ yarns.
Now we’re dealing with Blackcaps teams with all sorts of players in and out of squads. In reflecting on the Transition and Transformation vibes from last summer, it felt like that was the platform to launch us into the space where we are now. Chuck in Finn Allen dominating the Super Smash, Colin de Grandhomme out injured and Colin Munro not enjoying the Adam Milne treatment for further escalation of these changing energies.
Boiling down to a gut feel has me pondering what will be next. In very general terms, I reckon we will work our way back around to the pure top-tier as opposed to the wide selection net we have seen this summer; with World Test Championship Final and T20 World Cup lurking this is a ‘no shit Sherlock’ statement.
Big tournaments/events coming up, naturally means putting all these Blackcaps options through a juicer to get the concentrate. My process in boiling down Blackcaps insights is to see who is consistently performing in the Blackcaps teams and stay away from overt hype around players getting hot for a game, or one series. The fringe group of players who have washed into the Blackcaps squads this summer won’t take over the Blackcaps into 2021. One or two will command further opportunities as squad members, while the top-tier form the various 1st 11s.
I know it feels like a lot is changing with the Blackcaps. My vibe is that all the changes over the past 12-18 months will be tightened for a big year of cricket.
Yesterday I wrote about Kyle Jamieson and Finn Allen in the IPL. I came across this information during the process and it wasn’t really necessary to that yarn, but makes for interesting viewing. I have no idea how viable the source is (Moneyball.insidesports) but it’s the best I could find…
Royal Challengers Bangalore Salaries (Indian Rupees - NZD)
Virat Kohli: 170,000,000 - $3,363,773.
Glenn Maxwell: 142,500,000 - $2,819,633.
Kyle Jamieson: 150,000,000 - $2,968,035.
AB de Villiers: 110,000,000 - $2,176,559.
Yuzvendra Chahal: 60,000,000.
Dan Christian: 48,000,000.
Kane Richardson: 40,000,000.
Adam Zampa: 15,000,000.
Josh Philippe: 2,000,000 (Finn Allen).
For the highest paid lads I put it through the Google converter to provide context. Either way, Jamieson is ranked higher than AB de Villiers and Glenn Maxwell. I’m curious as to how Jamieson deals with all of this as his performances dropped after the auction and he is now viewed as a key player for the Blackcaps, as well as having these fairly crazy expectations placed on him via his RCB salary.
It’s the type of scenario that develops an athlete further or creates a niggly situation for a younger player to deal with. Any slither of not performing to that value may generate some antics from the RCB faithful and for a kiwi bloke #niggly.
What role does Mike Hesson play in all of this? Hesson has either created a monster in raising the expectations of what Jamieson can offer or he’s using his inside kiwi cricket knowledge, knowing that Jamieson can handle all of this and perform at a Maxwell/de Villiers level.
Hesson’s a solid coach. We all know what made the Blackcaps who they are now and it’s an almighty generation of cricketers - some of Aotearoa’s best ever. On the back of that, Hesson has cruised around the cricketing world adding his expertise and let’s just say I’m curious to see how this all works out for Hesson.
As for Finn Allen, he’s merely replacing Josh Philippe on a minimum type salary. No expectations, he probably won’t play and he’ll cruise through the IPL.
Listening to these while writing…
Wildcard’s Notebook
Here’s a thing that I was a part of...
NZ Footy got in touch last week asking for an All-Time Premiership XI and this it was supplied, then they combined the efforts of the four “experts” asked and that’s what they came up with. Kinda funny seeing ‘The Niche Cache’ there it’s all good for the brand. Independent kiwi sports media’s got something to say, you know? Which is as good a time as any to say that if you do appreciate the chat that we provide and think we do good work and all that then pretty please drop a little something-something on our Patreon page, if you can spare it. That’s by far the best thing you can do to contribute to what we do. And we do take care of our many brilliant Patreon supporters too. So get amongst that if you can, even if it’s just a dollar or two a month. We just wanna get those numbers up.
As to the XI that I put forward, I don’t wanna explain it too much because these things are always so subjective and the debates are kinda tiring. Eleven players over seventeen years... I coulda named five teams and still left some bloody amazing players out. It’s tricky too because the resources just aren’t there to make the most informed calls that I could have. The most recent media guide I could find was from 2013. The stats exist somewhere but nobody’s sharing them. Plus comparing players whose careers didn’t even overlap is always strange to do – especially because it’s only been 3-4 years that The Niche Cache has covered this stuff in depth and I was a kid when this stuff started, the way I watch football now is obviously entirely different.
So if you disagree with what I served up then fair enough, I’m not taking any of it too seriously. But it was a good bit of fun to reflect upon it all. The front three and midfield trio that ended up being selected were exactly the same as my team. Emiliano Tade is the finest forward this league ever had, the all-time top scorer who spent the prime of his career at Auckland City. He did have a couple recent years as a pro in South Africa where he was so good he earned a transfer to the top club in the country and the only reason he left is because he got homesick for Aotearoa. He’d still be there otherwise. Roy Krishna wasn’t there as long but he was unplayable while he was. And his career with the Phoenix and in India since has proved one of the best examples of what this league was capable of (keep it in the past tense). Then the late great Kerryn Jordan... there are no adequate words so I won’t even try. Cool to see his son Liam Jordan now playing alongside a trio of fellow Premiership champions in Callum McCowatt, Eli Just & Dalton Wilkins at FC Helsingør in Denmark these days.
Albert Riera, incredible player. The tempo and control of his passing was absolutely remarkable at his best and another one who also fitted a really superb Phoenix career into this space of time. Jake Butler was supreme for Waitakere United for so many years, captaining them to glory, and even snuck in a great season for Hamilton Wanderers after that. A capped All White whilst playing almost exclusively as an amateur in NZ. He’s the record holder for Premiership appearances with 257 of them (assuming that Wikipedia is up to date... repeat that thing about scarce resources). And Aaron Clapham surely needs no explanation either. A maestro of the midfield who scored goals at a rate that kept up with most strikers. Just as Jake Butler was the heart and soul of Waitakere at their best, Aaron Clapham was the same for Canterbury United.
The defence was where I had more trouble. Angel Berlanga is the finest defender that I’ve seen regularly at this level, he was the first name on the list. And Ivan Vicelich was the second for being that guy in the first half of the Premiership’s lifespan, the longevity from The Godfather was crazy too as he came back after a long and trail blazing pro career in the Netherlands. Before there was Ryan Thomas there was Ivan Vicelich. After that it got trickier. James Pritchett was the bloke I went with in the end – nice to see Gordy agreed with me on that front. Curious what the tiebreaker was between James Pritchett and Ian Hogg who each got two votes but Hogg made the team. Then I also wanted to be the one to bring more of a recent flavour to things but it’s hard to do that because you’re comparing current stars with half a career against guys who played full careers. The books don’t balance. But Bill Robertson just dominated for Hawke’s Bay and has done for many years as well as a golden stint with Team Wellington and I just rate the hell out of him and what he achieved.
As for Eñaut Zubikarai I don’t even see how it could have been anyone else. What a player... and his ability with the ball at feet was a huge part of that Ramon Tribulietx ACFC team which as far as I’m concerned was the finest team this competition ever saw. No surprises there were a heap of those guys included. I did feel bad that I didn’t have more of a Team Welly flavour – although Clapham did have a stint there while Butler had an oft-forgotten cameo at the OFC Champions League for them once – which was part of what had me very strongly considering Justin Gulley (I was the only one who didn’t pick him, lol) but ultimately I decided that Robertson had more longevity and a higher peak.
Some quality Aotearoa tunes to see you into the weekend now…