El Niche Cache
July 25, 2020
The Niche Cast Podcast
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Scotty’s Word
Raise your mana.
Couple notes sparked by last night’s Parramatta Eels win over Wests Tigers…
Dylan Brown’s running and tackling.
I’m full of Dylan Brown hype as the kid is really good at rugby league. Brown can do so much as far as funky skills go, these stats are based on really basic NRL half duties.
Fox Sports Lab has Brown down for 97 ‘runs’. The only other player listed as a five-eight or halfback with 90+ runs is Kurt Mann (Knights) and literally all Mann does is run considering he has Mitchell Pearce and Kalyn Ponga running the show. Next best are Cameron Munster (Storm) with 73 runs and Daly Cherry-Evans (Sea Eagles) with 70 runs.
NRL.com has Brown down for 142 runs. Per NRL.com’s stats, Brown is the only half (#6 or #7) in the top-50 for total amount of runs.
Obviously there is a big difference between the Fox and NRL stats, plus Brown’s just played the first game of the round so he’s had an extra outing than most at the time of writing. Even with those two factors digested, Brown is in his first full NRL season and is among, if not the busiest running half in the game.
Per Fox Sports, Brown has missed 14 tackles in 11 games.
Here are the halves who have missed 20+ tackles so far this season: Ash Taylor, Scott Drinkwater, Jarome Luai, Kodi Nikorima, Kurt Mann, Anthony Milford, Benji Marshall, Corey Norman, Jack Wighton, Mitchell Pearce, Chad Townsend, Mitchell Moses, Jahrome Hughes, Adam Reynolds.
I’ll reassess for Monday Morning Dummy Half when everyone’s got through their game this weekend, regardless this is still hugely in Brown’s favour.
Per NRL.com, Brown is tackling at 92.6% efficiency this season. Brown has not missed more than 3 tackles in a game this season and of his 11 games (he’s played all 11) Brown has three games without a missed tackle.
Josh Aloiai leads the Tigers.
Like Brown, Aloiai is a young kiwi who has started all 11 games this season. It took a few games to reach a nek level, but he is on that nek level right now…
Aloiai has played 50+ mins, with 15+ runs and 130+ metres in six of his last five games.
Aloiai is tackling at 94.6% efficiency per NRL.com, missing more than 1 tackle in just two games.
Slide over to some cricket news with the Indian Premier League apparently sparking up in UAE and NZC opening the door for a few players to play - if the player’s due dilligence approves. While the IPL is the biggest, sexiest T20 tournament, the involvement of kiwis isn’t quite what the headlines about auction prices etc make it out to be. Personally, I’m far more interested in the upcoming Caribbean Premier League where the kiwis are … actually going to play most of the games.
I’ll use Ross Taylor to help me project an idea. Taylor hasn’t played IPL since 2014 and in his seven years of IPL, Taylor played 10+ games in three of those campaigns. That’s about as good as it gets for the kiwis and Taylor has opted for CPL over IPL this year in the Covid world - less cash, more game time and a greater leadership role?
Of the Blackcaps group with IPL deals, Kane Williamson and Mitchell McClenaghan are the only players who have one IPL season with 10+ games. Remember that NZC loves the IPL and BCCI, so they wiggle things around to allow players to play IPL, the following breakdown makes you wonder if it is worthwhile…
Williamson: Five years, one with 10+ games.
McClenaghan: Five years, four with 10+ games.
Mitchell Santner: One year, four games.
Jimmy Neesham: One year, four games.
Lockie Ferguson: Two years, (five/four games).
Trent Boult: Five years, one with 10+ games.
That’s the six players contracted for IPL 2020. Taylor, Ish Sodhi and Colin Munro can all make cases for being the best T20I players in Aotearoa, while Tim Seifert and Glenn Phillips are among Aotearoa’s best also and all these lads are off to the CPL.
All international cricketers make dosh and even then, there’s some niggle in the legit value of IPL contracts as a player needs to play ‘x’ number of games etc so we don’t know what kinda amount is actually paid to players from their sexy contract value that gets reported.
Would you rather trip around India (stuck in UAE for 2020) or trip around the Caribbean?
In IPL these kiwis are unlikely to have major involvement, in CPL they are likely to play every game.
I’m still annoyed that NZC hold players back from playing Big Bash League and I’m waiting for a certified Blackcap (not McClenaghan) to test this an push for a BBL opportunity. There is at least a bit of funk in the split between players in IPL vs CPL and I’m eager to see the how the influence of kiwis in both tournaments compares.
Robert Whittaker fights Darren Till on UFC Fight Island this weekend.
Having blabbled on about kiwi sport for the past five years or so, a few shifts have happened…
Going from Tohu Harris and Peta Hiku in the halves for Aotearoa Kiwis to having Benji Marshall, Shaun Johnson, Kieran Foran, Dylan Brown and Jahrome Hughes in the mix.
Going from *insert kiwi battler medium-pace seamer here* to Neil Wagner, Lockie Ferguson, Kyle Jamieson etc.
Chuck in the explosion of kiwi football and basketball - both of which provide high quality talent in Aotearoa and the world.
Same applies for Robert Whittaker and the UFC.
I used to cover Whittaker closely, because he was all Aotearoa had along with Mark Hunt. I’d put them under the #KiwiUFC umbrella, but that took some un-tangling and explanation just like trying to squeeze Tohu Harris into the Kiwis halves. Then City Kickboxing appeared and suddenly there are champions and highly ranked UFC fighters based in Auckland.
Ponder those shifts in the quality of kiwi sport/athletes for a second. Aotearoa is definitely the best sporting nation in the world, kg for kg.
Last we saw of Whittaker, funnily enough was that loss to Israel Adesanya. Whittaker’s had a tough few years, battling health issues along with the mental dark arts and a pesky loss to Adesanya on Whittaker’s home turf - Adesanya literally stole the show from Whittaker.
This fight vs Till is going to set Whittaker up for a possible climb back towards Adesanya, or it may be the end of Bobby Knuckles at this level of the UFC.
Hip-hoppers Joey Bada$$ and J Cole have both dropped songs recently loosely based around being re-born and leading:
Youz know I’m always here for a cheeky cartel/narco/crime rabbit-hole…
I came across this interview earlier in the week from Ioan Grillo - chatting to an Irish journalist who outlines the connection between the Kinahan Cartel in Ireland and a possible bout between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua:
Correct: not old links from Fury’s gypsy heritage, but current links between a crime organisation and what could be a bonkers heavyweight bout.
I’m deep into cartel information, yet I was not aware that perhaps the biggest drug-smuggling cartel in Ireland has a clear link to Fury vs Joshua. This opened things up in my mind and to simply lay out the information in my noggin’…
The ‘Ndragheta organisation essentially run the criminal world. They are an Italian mafia type of group who are genuinely world-wide - whether via criminal connections or via Italian mafia families in Canada, Australia etc. They are deep into the Swiss banking stuff and I have a feeling that most drug smuggling in the world is linked to ‘Ndragheta.
An organisation like the Kinahan Cartel is responsible for smuggling into Ireland via a possible (obviously ya boy can’t confirm this) connection to an organisation such as ‘Ndragheta.
In Aotearoa, recent deportees from Australia who are deep in the Australian crime world have opened up passage into Aotearoa. These deportees and their organisations bring their structure, contacts etc into the Aotearoa market once deported from Australia.
As ‘Ndragheta have their mits all over the world, I’d suggest that they play some sort of role in smuggling into Aotearoa. Not ‘Ndragheta themselves as far as smuggling into Aotearoa goes, but somewhere in the pipeline they definitely have an influence. In Aotearoa, there may be so much product (cocaine, pills etc) that local gangs don’t need to fight for the market or violence stems from trying to control the market.
Where does all this come from? Central and South America.
Columbian cartels still exist, cocaine production still exists in Columbia. Whether it’s cartels or the FARC-type - I recently read a story about the ‘National Liberation Army’ as an example of their weird naming style - cocaine still comes out of Columbia and the new twist is that the worldwide market for cocaine has taken over the demand in USA.
Mexican cartels are definitely in the midst and like they outlined in Narcos Mexico, Mexico is a trampoline for cocaine; from Columbia bounces in/out of Mexico to USA. Now though, the Mexican cartels (mainly CJNG and Sinaloa Cartel) can bounce their drugs around the world and I reckon that’s likely through a connection with ‘Ndragheta.
Mexican cartels feed USA with other weird drugs such as meth and fentanyl - which they can manufacture in Mexico.
Insight Crime is a great website for information on Central and South America.
Borderland Beat is a great website for the Mexican stuff - everything going on in Mexico is kinda disgusting right now.
Wildcard’s Notebook
One of the sneaky undercover factors in the Wellington Phoenix’s two games back has been what Ufuk Talay has done with his bench. There are a few easing in projects going on, specifically with Uli Davila having played as a sub in each of these two games when he’d started every single match of the season previously, and Gary Hooper is in a similar place having played 24 mins against Sydney and 45 against Perth. And Cam Devlin missed the first game with suspension while Matti Steinmann will miss the next with suspension – Alex Rufer to the rescue on both occasions no doubt. But those are the obvious ones that get mentioned in the WNTQ write-ups after each game. I’m talking about deeper in the squad.
Bench vs Sydney: McCowatt (45’), Davila (66’), Hooper (66’), Wilson (87’), Elliot (0’), McGing, Jones
Bench vs Perth: Davila (45’), Sotirio (51’), Hudson-Wihongi (83’), Wilson, Rufer, Jones, Sutton
Those are the minutes they were subbed on in, btw. The squad is already a little stretched with Tim Payne and Oli Sail out suspended though that doesn’t massively affect this conversation because Louis Fenton was out injured right up until the restart while third-string goalie Zac Jones wouldn’t have been with the team for anything other than ICE cover were Sail available. These two games are Jonesy’s first two in an A-League matchday squad.
But apart from Payne and Sail there’s only one player of the full 24-man squad that’s over there in Aussie who has not been a part of either game and that’s Walter Scott... who was injured for a decent amount of time leading into the lockdowns. Scott played two rather unflattering games in relief of a suspended Libby Cacace early in the campaign and has only made one matchday squad since (but, yeah, injury hasn’t helped).
Callan Elliot got his first appearance of the season against Sydney and wasn’t in the squad versus Perth. Liam McGing was on the bench for the first game and not the second. Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi came off the bench in the second after not being on the bench for the first. Sam Sutton came onto the bench for the second after not being in the first. And young mate Ben Waine started the first game then wasn’t even on the bench for the second. That was surely deliberate from Talay, who has made mention about the need to manage players’ minutes. He’s already getting the depth cooking at a low simmer to have them ready for when the heat goes up.
The Nix have gone from zero games in four months to playing six in about four weeks so even guys that would have been okay with that workload within the rhythms of a normal season may struggle... and I’m thinking specifically of the CBs Steven Taylor and Luke DeVere who both have injury histories (and Stevie T’s a bit older) and who have each started every single game so far. TAHW and McGing are big drop offs at CB compared to Taylor and DeVere but needs must and all that. It’s essential those two are ready for the playoffs.
Same goes and then some for the attacking core and the midfield duo although there’s a bit more natural rotation in those places anyway which oughta see them through. Gotta wonder about the fullbacks though. Fenton has missed a lot of footy this season, he’s got two more games before Payne returns so cover/relief is on its way. There’s nobody can do what Cacace does but he also might not even be with the team ‘til the end of the campaign if transfer money gets dangled from Europe. Whatever the plan is it’ll become more clear with each passing game... there are already whispers that Talay plans to make a few alterations for the Adelaide game on Saturday night.
See that? That’s the kind of game I’ve been hoping to see from Jordan Ngatai all NBL season. It’s been tough for the number one overall draft pick as he’s naturally got a bit of gravitational pull about him and he was brilliant the other night in taking advantage of that by dishing the ball around to fellas like Jordan Hunt as the Nuggets beat the Huskies 109-83 despite only 2 points from Ngatai. Then two days later he drops 37 points (with amenities) in a 97-85 win over the Manawatu Jets.
The Nuggets play again on Saturday in the last day of gameplay before the finals begin and it doesn’t even matter if they beat the Nelson Giants, which on current form they oughta do comfortably, because that top spot is already theirs guaranteed thanks to the head to head clincher over the Jets. For most of this tournament I’ve had down Taranaki and Manawatu as my favourites but the last week of Nuggets games are starting to sway me, four wins in a row with both Ngatai and Hunt having 30+ point games in there to go with what I’m tempted to say is the best defence in the competition and... well, let’s just say the playoffs should be good. These types of competitions always serve up a few upsets – case and point Abby Erceg’s NC Courage losing in the quarters of the NWSL, peep your Flying Kiwis for more – but defs the Nuggies are timing their run of form perfectly.
Of course, Ngatai is off contract at the Breakers. Same as Tom Vodanovich who is having a monster NBL campaign himself. Apparently Dan Shamir, who has been a common presence at these games, has a list of “10-12 players” who he thinks could offer something to the Breaks. The Breakers only have two remaining local roster spots, plus another development player if they wanna actually use one of those DP slots for a kiwi for once, so don’t hold your breath about all that. Still not really sure why they signed Dan Trist instead of someone like Tohi Smith-Milner, Tom Vodanovich, or Sam Timmins for example. But I will point out that Shamir’s deep scouting mission isn’t only about immediate free agency. Think on all the injuries they had early last season, if they knew there were one or two local players who could immediately offer something to them as short-term replacements then that might have gotten them the extra win they needed to crack the semis.
Speaking of kiwi basketball, this is on the To Listen list...
Update on the Washington R*dskins name change... they haven’t quite settled on a new name yet so in the mid-term they’ve announced they’ll be going by the placeholder title: The Washington Football Team.
On the one hand I kinda like the simplicity. It’s plain and to the point, like an English football club. Arsenal FC. Chelsea FC. Liverpool FC. On the other hand it’s a bit different when we’re talking about American franchise sports. I mean, is it something in the water in Washington or what? Eh, I’ll just let the internet deal with this one...
The good news for the WFT is that on the current trajectory it feels pretty unlikely that the NFL is gonna start on time in its usual format in September. The more distracting drama from the league the less people will focus on the Washington Whitebreads.
Righto, palette cleanser to finish with the new illuminati hotties offering...
Reading Menu
2020 Aotearoa Cricket Landscape: Seamers and Seam Things (Cricket)
The Welly Nix Title Quest: Getting The Ball Rolling Again (Football)
The Brooklyn Nets Are Still In Limbo Mode For NBA x Disney World (Basketball)
#KiwiNRL Encyclopedia: Round Tekau Ma Tahi (Rugby League)
Flying Kiwis – July 21 (Football)
Monday Morning Dummy Half: Daejarn Asi and Jaxson Paulo Debuts (Rugby League)
Tai Webster’s Coming Home! (And Some Other Breakers Free Agency Stuff) (Basketball)