El Niche Cache
June 12, 2020
The Niche Cast Podcast
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Scotty’s Word
Rather epic conversation to get us started…
Some of you may have seen that NZ Warriors announced a partnership with Redcliffe Dolphins who are one of the biggest clubs in the Brisbane area and have their top men’s team in Queensland’s Intrust Super Cup competition. This is interesting for a bunch of reasons, although with little to no details about this partnership shared during the announcement, I’ve got no idea what this involves.
In their press release thing about this, the Warriors described this as a ‘landmark Trans-Tasman partnership with far-reaching benefits for both organisations’ as well as using the term ‘trailblazing’. The press release obviously followed that tone and talked it up big time, yet there was absolutely no mention of how long this partnership will be for and how it actually works.
The announcement did say that the Warriors will no longer have their reserve grade team compete in New South Wales’ Canterbury Cup, which would result in Redcliffe becoming the Warriors reserve grade team. This comes after the Warriors deleted their Jersey Flegg (NSW under 20s) and opted to instead operate an SG Ball team (NSW under 18s) which started earlier this year. That leaves a big hole between U18 and reserve grade, which had me eager to see how the local Auckland competition looked as I wondered whether the Warriors may get their younger lads playing against men in the Auckland comp.
Essentially, the Warriors have undergone an immense revamp of the development pathways over the past 12-18 months. I reckon this is largely due to Peter O’Sullivan coming in and is finger prints have been all over Warriors recruitment moves as O’Sullivan worked with the Roosters before some drama took over and led to O’Sullivan joining the Warriors; recent recruits such as Jackson Frei, Adam Pompey, Josh Curran and Poasa Fa’aumausili all came from the Roosters.
Whether it’s about finding the most efficient pathway or cutting costs - I don’t know. It’s far cheaper to operate an SG Ball team for 10 weeks or so early in the year than funding a Jersey Flegg team that runs about as long as the NRL season, while I can also make a case for this being about getting younger lads up against better competition earlier.
Same goes for the Redcliffe move. It may be cheaper to fly in and out of Queensland and also cheaper to only worry about maybe … five lads who would play for Redcliffe from the Warriors instead of fielding a full reserve grade team made up of Warriors and flying them back and forth. Redcliffe have no shortage of players, so they won’t be relying on 15 Warriors joining them for games and it’s likely to be a case of a few lads who aren’t required for the NRL squad getting game time with Redcliffe.
Obviously having a reserve grade base in Australia this year would be useful, yet I don’t think this deal is about 2020 and it feels more long-term. Another factor is O’Sullivan’s experience with Melbourne Storm and Sydney Roosters as he would have seen the benefits of the Storm’s partnerships (plural) with Easts Tigers and Sunshine Coast Falcons in Intrust Super Cup. The Roosters have more recently aligned with the Central Coast region (Gosford) to establish a wider junior base; both Storm and Roosters have small local junior bases but quality Aotearoa recruitment and strong relationships around Australia.
The bit about Warriors and local Auckland footy is interesting also. Part of me hopes the Warriors use local Auckland footy as a bridge for young players and someone like King Vuniyayawa has been a constant presence for Manurewa Marlins prior to his NRL debut this year. The Canterbury Cup squad for their lone game this year also featured Emeliano Mikaele and Nicholas Halalilo who were the only non-Warriors in the squad and came directly from Auckland’s local league where they played in 2019.
And yet there’s this Redcliffe partnership. My concluding vibe is that there is a balance and I think the Warriors are setting up different bits and bobs to cover everything and ultimately that’s what they need to do.
The funkiest story in kiwi sport is team Joseph Parker vs team Junior Fa.
Other than a couple headlines about a possible fight between the two South Auckland heavyweights, the funkiest story in kiwi sport gets minimal attention and that’s beautiful because I see it crystal clear. It’s less about drama between Parker and Fa, more about their coaches and considering that City Kickboxing’s Eugene Bareman has swiftly established himself as one of the best MMA coaches in the world, any niggle between Kevin Barry (or David Higgins) and Bareman is far more even than people would think.
Eugene Bareman!? Yeah, Fa trains at CKB and remember that Israel Adesanya has competed in numerous boxing events so CKB boxing isn’t new - Parker defeated Brian Minto in May, 2014 and Adesanya defeated Brian Minto in March, 2015.
To set the scene, here is a video of Bareman expressing his views about Kevin Barry back on December 31st, 2018…
And then we have Bareman - rocking the CKB Swandri - kinda exposing the weird world of boxing…
Bareman’s mana is immense and while he is known to fire a few shots - he and CKB kaumatua don’t really want Adesanya vs Jon Jones because Jones is a shitty person - Bareman only fires those shots when their warranted. Well, that’s my vibe any way and I’m fascinated by this Parker vs Fa dynamic.
Still no word on #KiwiUFC matters other than Alex Volkanovski (Aussie who trains at CKB) locked in for a rematch with Max Holloway for Volkanovski’s featherweight title on the UFC 251 on fight island. Surely there will be a couple of the CKB lads on that card.
Also - fight island huh? This is far less sexy that the marketing and hype makes it seem as ‘fight island’ is merely Yas Island in Abu Dhabi where the UFC held Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Dustin Poirier last year (and back in 2010). Not a tropical island in the Caribbean or Pacific Islands, just a spot where they have been before.
Sophie Devine spun some yarns…
Wildcard’s Notebook
I’ve got to admit that I’ve been rather addicted to refreshing that pesky twitter feed in recent weeks. All the protests that are going down around the world, I’m just feeding on that energy at the moment. I love it. Power to the people. NYT film critic Wesley Morris wrote something kinda brilliant (as per) the other day when he wrote:
“The most urgent filmmaking anybody's doing in this country right now is by black people with camera phones”
I’d never thought of it like that but seriously where would we be if we didn’t have documentary evidence of all the atrocities that have been perpetrated by those in power, particularly with the BLM movement in the USA but also across the globe. That documentation becomes awareness which becomes involvement. Despite the ridiculous cliches about the frivolities of the social media generations, young folks today are also the most politically active for at least fifty years. Despite those older battlers out there still clinging to their idea of what society used to (and in their eyes is supposed to) look like… the world is only heading in one direction and that’s a heartening thing. I just wish the process was a bit quicker, you know?
Speaking of speaking up, I had the misfortune within my twitter addiction of coming across a video from one of those winy, weasely conservative pundits (you may know the one, I shan’t link it) having a big old moan about how sports used to be a ‘safe space’ and that the over-politicising of it has ruined that space for him. Oh well, later bo.
(That’s not the video btw, that’s just a rather hilarious comedic take on the situation)
See, the thing that people like that never realise is that taking the politics out of sports is itself a political act. Dumbarses. Take the NBA… that league is like 80% African-American so it’s ridiculous to expect those owners and league officials to sit this one out and isolate its playing base. Let’s be honest, there are commercial factors at play here too and not perpetuating racism is a decent position to be in if you want civilians to continue to engage with your brand - which itself tells you a thing or two about where the conversation is going but powerful people saying things and powerful people doing things are unfortunately two different beasts so, another example, getting the NFL to improve its pathways for black coaches in a league that relies on the efforts of black athletes will take more time.
Women’s sports are always political. Look at the disgraceful replies to any major female athlete’s post - literally anyone of any prominence - and you’ll see why. Their very existence in a male-dominated sporting culture is considered a threat to a lot of knuckle-draggers out there, so much so that they feel they have to belittle them at any random opportunity. Simply doing what they do, for female athletes, is pushing back against an ingrained social assumption… that’s political. Same as how sports cross so many national boundaries, the English Premier League is massively popular on basically every populated continent of the planet, not to mention how multi-cultural the players are and those factors are political too in their own way. Not intentionally, perhaps. Capitalism is unfortunately calling the shots. But that global awareness expands the horizons of the minds of so many people.
But sportsfolk aren’t supposed to have opinions? They’re not supposed to call out the exploitation of power like any other citizen can simply because they play sports? Nah bro, that’s not it. In England footballers are regularly treated like morons by the people in charge as if footballers and football clubs aren’t out there doing the most incredible work in their communities while governments are out there giving tax cuts to people who don’t even need them.
There’s no imperative for athletes to speak out on matters of importance, that’s their personal call one way or the other. Same as anyone. Expecting them all to be silent though, they’re not race-horses here. They’re not greyhounds. They’re not trained purely to do this one thing and nothing else. They’re human beings and it shouldn’t be that difficult to comprehend that little fact.
In fact their status as professional sportsfolk ought to make their voices even more amplified for all those reasons above and more. LeBron James grew up in poverty and is not immensely rich and successful (and does incredible work for his community in so many ways), he’s got a perspective that very few people have from having lived on both sides of the fence. When LeBron talks, we listen. When Jerry in his car with the sunglasses on and an American flag in his handle tweets, nobody cares. Everyone’s allowed an opinion, sure, but some opinions are a lot more qualified than others.
Okay, that’s that off my chest. In recent times David Lynch’s youtube channel has turned into an incredible source of Lynchian eminence and the other day he chucked up a fifteen minute cut of his Rabbits project from the early 00s. It’s completely bonkers in a way that’s impossible to do justice in words… just know that the words seem to be completely out of order as if someone did a Burroughs and chopped up all the lines of the script and then put them back together at random. Which maybe, come to think of it, is exactly what happened. Apparently they’ve used this series in experiments about how humans deal with existential dread so get that into ya before you watch this…
Sorry about that. Try not to curl up into a ball and cry the rest of the day away.
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#KiwiNRL Encyclopedia: Round Rima (NRL)
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