El Niche Cache
The Niche Cast Podcast
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NZ Warriors Preview Clip…
Full Episode…
Scotty’s Word
Lovely array of mix and match topics floating around…
I’ll start with a tid-bit on NZ Warriors grabbing Poasa Fa’aumausili on a loan deal from the Roosters: I don’t think Fa’amausili will be given an opportunity to play by Stephen Kearney and thus I don’t think this really matters. If the Warriors somehow snare Fa’aumausili on a longer deal, then we have a nifty piece of business.
Fa’amausili isn’t quite in the Roosters top-17, understandable given their forward pack and the quality of depth they have. Fa’aumasili has done a great job when called upon though and for those not quite acquainted with NRL recruitment from Aotearoa, the Roosters are alongside the Storm as the best #KiwiNRL scouters/recruiters.
I didn’t mention Christian Tuipulotu in yesterday’s NZ Warriors Restart Guide, when yarning about this topic because Tuipulotu was actually snatched away from NZ Warriors by the Roosters. Along with their NRL crew (Isaac Liu, Sitili Tupouniua, Sio Siua Taukeiaho, Joseph Manu) who were all smartly scouted, the Roosters have Asu Kepaoa and Tuipulotu in their system, both of whom played in the Under 19 Junior Kiwis last year. There’s also Baileigh Bentley-Hape from Northland who appears to be a classy back in their junior ranks and all that is to say that if the Roosters recruit you from Aotearoa (Liu and Jared Waerea-Hargreaves weren’t lured across the ditch by the Roosters specifically), you’re a good person and a good footy player and that’s all you need to know about Fa’aumausili.
Big week for Glenora Bears (Auckland) as Fa’amausili has been in the news and there is the battle between Josh Aloiai (Tigers) and Braden Hamlin-Uele (Sharks); both of whom are Glenora juniors.
And DO NOT EVER TRY TO FIGHT JOSH ALOIAI.
That video is from two years ago, then this week NRL.com dropped a new yarn.
NRL players are currently doing the best job in terms of tapping into their own power with their own content. Chad Townsend and Shaun Johnson both do vlogs, here are their most recent:
Townsend also had another great chat on his podcast, this time with Luke Lewis
Reiko Ioane also does vlogs
And of course Ardie Savea does his podcast
So easy, yet so many kiwi athletes box themselves in and let the media control their narratives by doing nothing. Spark it up!
YKTR did a little something for the NRL’s return - our funds are a bit low for stuff like this lol.
Northern Districts Knights have advertised for a new head coach with both their men’s and women’s activities. John Bracewell had been the Knights coach, with Gareth Hopkins running the T20 team although the Knights finished 6th (last) in the Plunket Shield and Super Smash last summer, 4th in the Ford Trophy. That’s kinda funky, then former coach Grant Bradburn has been given a promotion with the Pakistan men’s team from fielding coach to head of high performance coaching.
Here’s what Bradburn told Cricinfo…
"I am honoured that my association and relationship with Pakistan cricket continues," Bradburn said. "I consider it a privilege to work here in Pakistan among highly skilled players and coaches, while I have realised there is incredible talent and passion for the game in this country.
"I now aim to support our best players by enabling our current and future coaches with the skills they need to create world's best players and winning environments. In turn, this proud cricket nation will aim to become self-reliant on cricket coaching resources that are both world leading and uniquely Pakistan.”
While on the topic of former Knights coaches, Jimmy Pamment still appears to be working with Mumbai Indians as a fielding dude and wrapped up a six month stint with USA Cricket head coach in February.
And from Pamment’s Twitter is a picture of a bunch of goobers
There is obviously a lot of discussion around how sports move forward with upcoming fixtures and what not, especially in the cricket realm. My vibe around this is similar to my general post-pando vibe as I see this as the perfect time, perhaps the divine time gifted to us by mother nature, to find better ways of operation and as I view international cricket being the most fucked up sport in terms of being a worldwide competition, new ways of operation in international cricket would be great.
International cricket has been allowed to wander down this path of appearing to have been shaken up by the arrival of T20 cricket, but not really. T20 cricket has just allowed the major power players to double down on their power and limit the possibilities of a logical schedule/competition, as well as international expansion. Whether it’s the battle between IPL and T20 World Cup, England’s shenanigans with ‘The Hundred’ or the cool but super weird Test Championship, the cricket world has a lot of shit to figure out and it would be nice if smart cricket people came together with a plan for the betterment of cricket - not their own profits.
Greed hasn’t served corporations that well in the pando and I feel like greed isn’t going to serve anyone that well moving forward. Now is the time to be light, agile and creative.
Bunch of fresh music that plopped on my radar, starting with those from Aotearoa:
And a couple more hip hop tunes
I also thoroughly enjoy a bit of Greentea Peng
Oh and a couple UFC fights that have been uploaded in the past week. Full fights, for free
Wildcard’s Notebook
The A-League is coming back! Sort of. After weeks and weeks of bugger all noise coming out of A-League HQ, so quiet you could hear the mice scurrying, the powers that be have finally emerged from their isolations to offer up a plan on how to move forward. About bloody time too, when they chucked that news up on their website it had been a full month since the previous article had been published on that bad boy (which was news of Gertjan Verbeek leaving as Adelaide manager, later bro).
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this happened right as the NRL was preparing to return either. The A-League seems to have found a comfortable place hiding in the shadow of the NRL, letting them make the mistakes first, which makes sense given how bad decision making has been in the A-League at board level in recent times but makes no sense given how bad decision making has been in the NRL at board level in recent times. Aussies, aye? Still, there’s an even more crucial aspect to this which is why you’re also seeing news of the Premier League’s planned return this week and that’s that expiring player contracts were due to end on May 31. The Wellington Phoenix in particular have Gary Hooper, Luke DeVere, Matti Steinmann, Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi, Luke McGing, Callum McCowatt, Callan Elliot, and Walter Scott all coming off the books and at least a couple of them are first eleven players. There’s already gonna be drama with whether they can retain their international players given the troubles with travel so the clock was certainly ticking.
The plan is that the A-League will come back in mid-July, giving teams a month prior to that to train and prepare, then they’ll complete the remaining games of the season by the middle of August, including playoffs. For the Phoenix, it’ll almost surely mean doing what the Warriors have done in the NRL, jetting over for a bit of quarantine first and then basing themselves out of Aussie the rest of the way - which isn’t as much of a sacrifice to be fair because the A-League is going to adopt a “hub” approach with all the remaining 32 games to be played in a singular location (doesn’t take a genius to guess it’ll be either in Sydney, Melbourne, or Brisbane).
But literal facts are scarce because the broadcasters are being bastards about it… which seems to be a recurring theme around the world as various leagues have to jump through enormous hurdles and make difficult compromises around player welfare and such only to then find themselves faced with greedy broadcasters demanding repayments… methinks future broadcast deals will start involving Pandemic Insurance clauses or something from now on.
Specifically with the A-League, Fox Sports have this contractual option to back right out of their deal entirely during the current window when games aren’t being played. They don’t actually want to do that, they’re only halfway into a six-year deal, but the fact that they can gives them bargaining supremacy over the cash-strapped A-League and reports are that they’re refusing to sign off on this restart plan until they can renegotiate that deal with tens of millions of dollars heading back to Fox Sports in refunds. Which goes a long way towards explaining why the A-League has been so invisible recently even as the NRL storms ahead… they had their head in a guillotine.
Fox Sports is owned by Foxtel. Like many kiwi media companies, Foxtel is hemorrhaging money and are firing staff left, right, and centre. They want to save some cash, they aren’t happy with dropping viewership figures in recent seasons anyway, now they’re threatening to hold up the restart process. The FFA, the A-League clubs, and most importantly the players association, have all agreed on the plan. Only the broadcasters are holding things up and unsurprisingly the A-League’s press release had plenty of nice things to say about the commercial opportunities of this restart campaign once you’ve got games on telly most nights of the week, leading into playoffs, all at a singular location blah blah blah.
Fox Sports are villians here. They’re being greedy and extorting a sport’s league which is obviously in an awkward situation already. But the A-League are also villains because their long-term inability to capture the majority of a massive footy culture in Australia has led to these dramas, creating tension with the broadcaster and leading to cobwebs in the coffers. It’s such a bloody stupid thing.
But I’m sure they’ll come to some compromise eventually and I’d be very surprised if the A-League doesn’t return at the announced date considering, you know, that they’ve already announced it (even without broadcaster agreement). And when they do the Wellington Phoenix will have 35 days to turn a third-place standing as it is into a championship. They have six games remaining, equal most of any team, but are only four points off second place with three games in hand on Melbourne City. Plus the Nix are on a four-game winning streak for what it’s worth. Regardless of the dramas it’ll cost to get there, this Phoenix team does deserve the chance to play this season out to its conclusion and try build on what’s been their most promising campaign for several seasons and although we’re still a month and a half away from that point I’m starting to get just a little bit excited about it all again, God help me. Fire up the jet skis!
And while I’ve got your attention here, I’ve gotta say I’ve been delighted by the mundanities of David Lynch’s youtube channel. Every day he does a forty second weather report from his work shed. Then today he chucks up a couple minutes of him explaining his active DIY projects. Like, this dude is one of the wildest most surreal minds in cinematic history but sure show us how you fixed that sink, bro. It’s the ultimate surrealist statement - so completely not surreal that it feels surreal. Watching him explain how he’s been varnishing a hat stand or whatever that was makes Eraserhead look like a Disney movie.
And also this was from a month or two ago but I only saw it the other day and got a lot from it. A couple top tier kiwi songwriters in conversation.
Reading Menu
#KiwiNRL Encyclopedia: Round Toru (NRL)
Diary Of An Aotearoa Warriors Fan: The Restart Guide (NRL)
Flying Kiwis – The State of Things (Football)