El Niche Cache
October 9, 2020
The Niche Cast Podcast
iTunes | Spotify | The Niche Cache | Youtube | Pre-Podcast Korero on Patreon
Reading Menu
Monday Morning Dummy Half: Aotearoa's Young Middle Monsters (NRL)
DOAAWF: Saluting The Aotearoa Warriors Class of 2020 (NRL)
Flying Kiwis – October 7 (Football)
27fm Weekly Niche Cache Playlist: October 6 (Music)
Joseph Parker vs Junior Fa: It’s Happening (Boxing)
What About The Plunket Shield? And Other Stuff From The NZC Summer Schedule (Cricket)
2020/21 Plunket Shield: Blackcaps Fringe Business (Cricket)
The Wildcard’s NFL Picks - Week 5 (NFL)
Scotty’s Word
NZRL have named a NZ Under 16 Residents team that will play NZ Maori Under 17 (from last weekend’s Rangatahi tournament). The name that stands out once again is Francis Manuleleua who I’ve mentioned a bunch of times as he’s one of the best footy prospects in Aotearoa having played in Future Warriors (U16) fixtures previously. Manuleleua didn’t play SG Ball (U18) earlier this year as he’s still a youngin, but did start consistently for Kings College 1st 15 and as I mentioned last week he then played for the Blues U18 squad vs Chiefs U18s.
A bunch of players were named in both squads, so I’m not sure who they will opt to play for. From the Maori Under 17s team, Cassius Cowley stands out as he’s with the Warriors having been recruited from Rotorua and Felix Fa’atili from Canterbury is the younger brother of Caius Fa’atili.
Caius exploded on to the scene last year in the NZRL National Premiership and the best I could find was that both Caius and Felix are aligned with the Broncos while staying in Christchurch. Caius is again playing for Canterbury in this year’s National Premiership.
Beniah Ioelu and Cassius Tia are signed with Roosters.
Jacob Laban, Nathaniel Tangimataiti and Manuleleua played in the Future Warriors fixtures last year - probably still aligned with Warriors. Tamakaimoana Wahreaorere is also signed with Warriors.
Trent Boult is now 3rd in wickets in the IPL with 10w @ 18.30avg/7.84rpo and Boult has taken a wicket in all six games he’s played for Mumbai Indians. The top four wicket-takers in the IPL are Kagiso Rabada, Jasprit Bumrah, Boult and James Pattinson and these four are all very good Test bowlers - all except Pattinson lead their Test attacks but Pattinson averages a super healthy 26.33 in Test cricket.
So the four best IPL bowlers right now are all very good Test bowlers. That’s a great starting point for a bunch of weird cricket thoughts.
Three ODIs vs Australia for the White Ferns and three losses.
Australia won by 7 wickets, 3 wickets and then by 232 runs. In all three games Australia scored over 5rpo and the White Ferns managed to take 14/30 possible wickets.
I’ll crack into the debrief tomorrow, right now I’m pondering a lack of funk in the bowling department. Other than Amelia Kerr’s leggies (6w @ 22.66avg/5.23rpo) there is no point of difference in the Ferns bowling group with everyone apart of Maddy Green’s offies operating as a typically kiwi right-arm seamer. Two consistent White Ferns spinners in Leigh Kasperek and Anna Peterson were absent for this tour and that’s a factor, although this is a seam attack that is desperate for some x-factor.
Kerr took 6w and the five seamers combined to take 8w in this ODI series.
Sneaking under the radar we have Hockey NZ’s Premier Hockey League that isn’t set to start until next month but squads have been announced. This is a complete revamp of the standard national league structure and as per the weirdo normal, new logos and catchy team names are required when looking to revamp a league.
Four teams will compete in the men’s and women’s competition, with all games in Hamilton across a few weekends. A bunch of Black Sticks are named and I also noted that Black Sticks Women’s coach Graham Shaw is listed as assistant coach for the Northern Men. I find it baffling that there is still a narrative of Black Sticks Women drama being rolled out by mainstream media and wrote about a fairly impressive start to 2020 for the kiwi women under Shaw - despite Shaw apparently continuing the dramas from the Mark Hager era.
Now Shaw’s an assistant coach for a men’s team? Obviously those in Hockey NZ have no issues with Shaw.
Here are the national squad players named for each team…
Northern Men: Cory Bennett, Steve Edwards, George Muir, Richard Joyce.
Hauraki Men: Marcus Child, Simon Child, Leon Hayward, Arun Panchia, Jared Panchia, Dwayne Rowsell, Aidan Sarikaya, Nic Woods.
Central Men: Stephen Jenness, Dane Lett, Shea McAleese, Brad Read, Jacob Smith, Dylan Thomas.
Southern Men: David Brydon, George Enersen, Hugo Inglis, Sam Lane, Nick Ross, Blair Tarrant, Kane Russell.
Northern Women: Stephanie Dickins, Katie Doar, Ella Gunson, Stacey Michelsen, Brooke Roberts.
Hauraki Women: Tarryn Davey, Alia Jaques, Rose Keddell, Julia King, Grace O’Hanlon, Amy Robinson, Liz Thompson.
Central Women: Georgia Barnett, Kaitlin Cotter, Megan Hull, Holly Pearson, Olivia Shannon, Kelsey Smith, Kayle Whitelock.
Southern Women: Frances Davies, Rachel McCann, Olivia Merry.
Wildcard’s Notebook
Here’s Winston Reid scoring a goal...
And here’s Ria Percival scoring a goal...
Cool.
Now I’m gonna pivot a bit and talk about two absolute heroes who are out there with new film projects at the moment. The first is David Attenborough and he’s got a fresh doco on Netflix, not one of them brilliant series with the nature footage and the voiceovers and all that... but a documentary where he presents what he calls his ‘witness statement’ after 93 years on the planet, most of which have been spent exploring and admiring and teaching nature to the rest of us mere mortals.
It’s often a brutal watch. As Attenborough explains the degradation of our planet you can only really sit back helpless and hopeless at the selfish acts of humanity against the life that sustains us. And here’s a man IN HIS NINETIES who has watched it all unfold in real time and is still committed to this most noble of causes. The saddest thing about what we’re doing to our planet is that it’s so unnecessary. Humans have lived sustainably in the past and we have all the technology and knowledge to do so again... we’re just too lazy to bother.
Or maybe it’s because the climate crisis (I don’t really like the term ‘global warming’ because it’s only one aspect of a larger, fundamental problem) is an abstract thing which unfolds slow enough for people to obfuscate and distract from it. Like, 9/11 happens and it’s a shocking tragedy which was nothing and then was something and in that moment of tragedy people’s perspectives changed drastically and instantly. The ramifications are still ongoing in various conflicts and political ideology now almost twenty years later. The coronavirus was sort of in between where it’s both sudden and distant all at once (both physically and chronologically) which has allowed for both sides of the acceptance equation. But the climate crisis is entirely abstract until you step all the way back to a planetary perspective which is simply not how most people live. Minute rises in ocean temperatures make no immediate impact on your life. You don’t turn the TV on for breaking news about it. But the consequences are enormously dire.
All of this is infuriating for those of us who care about the natural world and want to see it thrive. (I’ve already given my two ticks green). Attenborough presents a biological perspective on it all, impossible to argue with (and I wouldn’t dare anyway – one of the biggest hurdles to all this is people wanting to debate with folks who are lightyears beyond them in wisdom and qualifications... sometimes ya just gotta sit back and listen to the experts), which is that the vibrancy of the planet is in its biodiversity. One species doesn’t thrive at the expense of everything else, you only thrive if all species are thriving. All is connected.
I’m pretty convinced that the issue here is a philosophical one. There’s a Charles Eisenstein book called ‘Climate: A New Story’ that sums this up better than I ever could but basically humans have this idea, borne out of capitalism (let’s be honest), that the earth and the natural world is something to be tamed and dominated like a wild stallion in the west. When in actual fact it’s a powerful ecosystem which we ought to have reverence for and even hold sacred. A holistic environment to which we belong. Not something we can survive apart from. That’s a point that Attenborough makes... the climate crisis isn’t about whether the planet is gonna fry into a husk because of human activity. The planet will respond and recover eventually. Humans just won’t be a part of it when it does because that’s how life works. Species that don’t adapt will die out. This is a human crisis not a planetary one, ultimately.
Then in the last half hour of the doco, Sir David presents the case for hope. The salvation here is not as difficult as you’d think. Nature is resilient after all. The first thing that needs to happen is we need to cap the population because it cannot go on growing as it continues to do... and yet even that isn’t as dark as it sounds. It involves tackling poverty and allowing for a more balanced economy in which more people have access to what is defined as success. When people have more going on in their lives, they defer having kids for longer. Just enough that the population stabilises... which is all we need. Then we need to take the pressure of industrial food production. Less meat in diets. Less land required to produce that meat. More land left to regain its former wilderness. More biodiversity.
It’s an ongoing process but there are little things we can all do in our everyday lives. It’s not about going all in on veganism, although no dramas if that’s your kick, but simply reducing the unsustainable parts of your diet is enough if enough people do so. A few more vegan/vegetarian meals per week is a start. Not buying single-use plastics is another. Recycling for damn sure and that doesn’t only mean blindly chucking things in a bin... if you can re-use materials yourself then that’s even better. Keep those jars for storing seeds or sprouting or whatever... which fits into the next one: growing your own veges/herbs is insanely easy. You don’t even need much space. A few pot plants on the windowsill and that’s all the parsley and basil you need for starters.
And the other thing about all of those measures... they’re really fun. Like, they’re rewarding things to do. So many people are just so committed to doing what they’ve always done because they don’t see the urgency... but it doesn’t have to be a chore or a sacrifice. It’s fun. It’s rewarding. It’s the way things are supposed to be.
Then the other hero, how could he be anything else, is Sacha Baron Cohen... who all of a sudden last weekend dropped a trailer for a new Borat film. Borat 2! At the time when we needed him most... here he is. Astounding.
Movie trailers are often pretty unrepresentative and never are they worse than for comedies where you watch a minute and a half of hilarious moments chopped together and it sells you on the film until you actually watch it and realise that those were all the jokes that they had. Ninety seconds turns into ninety minutes. But this trailer looks fantastic.
SBC’s films are all pretty hit or miss. Borat is the best of them because it was the loosest of them. All his scripted efforts are crazy at best and offensive at worst... the shock value hits different when it doesn’t have that veneer of reality. But Cohen’s genius isn’t built on his films it’s built on the incredible satirical excellence of one of the greatest comedy shows ever committed to tape: Da Ali G Show.
It’s easy to look at Ali G and see an anarchic idiot, dragging his interviewees down with his stupidity. That surface level is important to what he does but it’s so much deeper than that... the people he’d interview let their guards down talking to this blatant moron only for that moron to then brilliantly twist their words and ideas around and make them look like the idiots. Sometimes he’d just do things for a laugh, other times he’d straight up savage people. Ali G generally exposed bad ideas. Borat would expose prejudice. Bruno would expose either prejudice or pretentiousness. I cannot possibly say it firmly enough that Da Ali G Show is as good as satire gets... now all I wanna do is watch Ali G clips. They redid them a few years ago too, repackaging the old clips with new intros from Ali G himself, booyakasha.
*slappy finger click thing*
Respect.