El Niche Cache
July 27, 2020
The Niche Cast Podcast
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Scotty’s Word
We have made some tweaks to our podcast format recently, stripping it back to one hearty episode per week. Monday’s are recording day, published Monday night or Tuesday morning depending on your bedtime - how we deliver the podcast has always been tweaked as we’re amateurs at the mercy of life’s schedules. Ultimately, we just want to serve up a really good kiwi sports podcast and hopefully we can lure you into a listen or two.
Check out the Niche Cast and the door’s open for feedback or ideas for the type of content you’d like to hear. We’re building from the ground up like a big ol’ kauri tree and establishing a high quality podcast is part of these foundations.
Part of my weekend activities involve listening to the Triple M NRL show (radio show flipped into a pod), which is served up on Saturdays and Sundays. Brush aside the Aussies being Aussies stuff and there are plenty of nuggets of good NRL information, like hearing Brandon Smith (Melbourne Storm/Waiheke Island) and Mitchell Moses (Eels) talk about Sonny Bill Williams making a return to the NRL.
First - Brandon Smith is fuckin’ crack up.
The idea sparked by those interviews was the regard in which us young folk hold SBW. I’ll be discussing this with Wildcard on the Niche Cast today as I reckon SBW is our Kobe Bryant considering that he’s a very legit legend for the youngins. Unfortunately it took Kobe’s death to really celebrate this; for those too young to see Michael Jordan in action, basketball was all about ‘Kobe!’.
Myself included. Any wannabe jump-shot in front of the garage or at Papatoetoe Intermediate had to include a ‘Kobe!’ shout, mandatory.
Any big hit in the backyard or any of Aotearoa’s lovely patches of grass had to include a ‘Sonny Bill!’ shout, mandatory.
Similar to how any barn-storming run with the footy tucked under a wing had to come with ‘Jonah!’, always and forever.
SBW is that guy for many of us. At every juncture of his career, SBW has showcased his athletic ability and ability to win (pretty important). On top of that, at every juncture of his career, SBW has shown growth and is nothing but an inspiration as a person and how to be a man in the modern age. I love excellence and SBW isn’t just an excellent athlete, he is an excellent person.
Random idea: I’ve heard anecdotes about SBW’s influence at the Roosters in his first stint there and fasting is something that pops up frequently. Fasting’s got all sorts of benefits and is generally a good idea (I’m not fuckin’ scientist, but I fast and feel lovely)…
What is a major aspect of Ramadan? Fasting while the sun is up.
In a time of division, SBW’s nek nek level is unity. He’s a half-cast uso, who is also a devout muslim and that’s the kinda leader I admire.
In Australia, Sydney specifically, there is an almighty battle between rugby union and rugby league for the talents of Joseph Suaalii. Of course, if you are reading the headlines about niggly between NZR and ARU, you’ll miss this but right now the Rabbitohs and ARU are competing for Suaalii - who currently plays league (Rabbitohs juniors) and union (1st 15 in Sydney).
This paragraph hit me hard because well, it’s bonkers:
Here are some highlights:
There is all sorts of nitty gritty in the weeds of this battle. ARU need stars to help bolster Aussie rugby and as rugby union in Australia is a bit elitist, they have serious financial backing behind the scenes for this exact reason. Suaalii can’t make his NRL debut for another year I think, while ARU can offer Olympic Sevens - NRL is a bigger platform to counter that.
Very interesting all round and this puts into perspective some of Aotearoa’s baller brilliance; there is more than enough talent in either code.
Yesterday, Robert Whittaker defeated Darren Till in the last UFC Fight Island card for a while. I didn’t actually catch the fight, the wash up said it was a highly technical battle and both lads described the fight as ‘stressful’ as they dealt with the traps, ploys to lure the other in.
Here’s the stat wrap (if you don’t follow UFC, try figure out the stats - understanding stats is crucial in building a better understanding sports):
“Stats are like guns: in the wrong hands they can be dangerous”. Understand the stats, while understanding how stats fit the eye-test.
As much as this may be built up, I don’t think Whittaker will fight Israel Adesanya any time soon. Adesanya has a big fight against Paulo Costa coming up and a win for Adesanya would see him in a spot where he can pick any fight, maybe a big money-making fight. Whittaker will probably re-up with another solid fight and their paths may cross some time next year. Till and Adesanya would also be a funky match up as they are always going back and forth on social media.
Big win for Whittaker, who tapped into his Commonwealth Games quality wrestling (made the Aussie team a few years back) as well as his striking that wasn’t quite on display vs Adesanya. I reckon Whittaker will work his way back to that #1 contender spot, whether Adesanya’s still the champ by then is intriguing.
Very low key: If Adesanya vs Costa is at the UFC’s Las Vegas facility where the octagon is considerably smaller than elsewhere, Costa could have advantage with his wild mauling style. The smaller octagon did not help Dan Hooker (vs Dustin Poirier) and I have a hunch that City Kickboxing need the bigger octagon to work their magic.
Our monthly album review jukebox is coming up and right now I’m listening to:
Wildcard’s Notebook
Back in the day when I used to write more about the Premier League (before bringing the focus in towards more kiwi football, since while I did enjoy writing all that there are hundreds of great Premier League writers around the world (and thousands of average ones) so my voice wasn’t serving anywhere near as much of a purpose there as it does writing unique things like Premmy Files)... anyway back in those days I’d do a Premier League team of the season at the end of it all. I did about three of them I think, I’d have to check. Same format as the Premmy Files team of the seasons where I pick a first, second, and third team so as to give a bit more depth to the thing and recognise more players. Generally the first eleven is pretty easy to select so there’s not much fun in only doing that unless you wanna spark up the clickbaity drama by winding up Liverpool fans or whatever.
I haven’t done it for the last couple years but I thought with these emails that this was a pretty useful outlet for that kind of thing. Only it takes a little bit of time to go through all the players and longlist and then shortlist and then shuffle them around some more and... yeah you can wait ‘til Friday for that one. Call it a teaser. I was gonna do that on Sunday but Sunday turned out to be a busy one, so it goes. I spent all morning reading Philip K Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? thinking I could write it in the evening but then once I’d finished the Welly Nix Title Quest draft I’d run out of time since I had to hit the hay early to get up for the Premier League’s ten concurrent final day games at 3am. Mission accomplished but it also meant I ran out of time to watch Blade Runner on Netflix like I was planning to do. Blade Runner is based on that PKD book I was reading and I’ve never seen it so maybe I’ll get on that tonight if I’m not too exhausted. Then tomorrow night the sequel.
I’m not much for science fiction in general. I often get the feeling that writing those books was more fun than reading them, crafting those futuristic worlds and all the jazz that goes on. Having said that, it’s a genre that really allows for some deep philosophical yarning which is always up my alley and this particular book also has that gritty noir feel to it and you know I love me some Raymond Chandler, mate. So yeah, burned through that bad boy in about two days. Bloody loved it. And while sci-fi books are pretty hit or miss for me, there are a heap of classic sci-fi films that I’d recommend in a heartbeat. The original Star Wars trilogy, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Snowpiercer, 12 Monkeys, The Man Who Fell To Earth, Under The Skin, Ex Machina, Looper, The Matrix, Back To The Future... and presumably Blade Runner (and the sequel) once I can find a couple spare hours to indulge.
(Sidenote: the only other PKD book I’d read before was last year when I read VALIS and that book blew my goddamn puny little mortal mind, I tell ya. Not really sci-fi though, more like a manic metaphysical quasi-religious schizophrenic explosion... and the story of the inspiration for it is almost as good. So he’s two for two, that dude. Good areas).
And since I bailed on my original idea, and also to get you salivating for Friday’s email, here’s an advance read of the Chris Wood section of tomorrow’s Flying Kiwis...
Shout out to Christopher Grant “The Woodsman” Wood. Burnley might have lost 2-1 to Brighton in their final game of the Premier League season, leaving them tenth on the table (a win woulda earned them eighth although that’s not good enough for European footy so no dramas) but with a goal late in the first half he took himself to 14 for the season. Woody thus finished tied for 13th on the Golden Boot rankings, level with Gabriel Jesus and ahead of fellas like Son Heung-Min, Riyad Mahrez and Teemu Pukki. Plus he did that taking only 2.0 shots per game which is fewer than every player that finished ahead of him in the race for the Boot.
This was also his third straight PL game with a goal which is the second time he’s done that this campaign... after failing to score in the first five league games at the beginning of the season (way back in those innocent pre-Covid days) he hasn’t since gone more than three PL games in a row without a goal. Another one: this was his third straight season with at least 10 Premier League goals. 14 in one season is a Burnley record since the Premier League rebranding of the early-90s and he missed six games too so it could have been more.
And as if that’s not enough he also won another prestigious Premier League award, retaining it in fact from his exploits last season... the Golden Flag. Only 35 offsides this term which narrowly edged him from Bournemouth’s Callum Wilson, not quite the like when he won it last season by fifteen clear flags. Wood had 53 offsides in 2018-19 compared to 38 for Glenn Murray and 37 for Jamie Vardy in third. 53 offsides in one season is the most any single player had managed since Darren Bent caught 67 of them back in 2010-11.
Wood’s goal came in the 44th minute. Brighton were already ahead thanks to a great long-range strike from Yves Bissouma after picking up a loose clearance down the middle of the pitch after twenty mins. But closing in on the half-time whistle and Erik Pieters picked out Woodsy on the end of some slick movement off his marker and the form he’s in at the moment it was one touch to control and then another to slide it past the keeper all in a smooth motion, the ball nestling inside the far post. Clinical striker’s work.
However Aaron Connolly, who had already missed one chance to put Brighton back on top, cut in from the left about five minutes after the break and he managed to evade the defence and beat Pope from a tricky angle. It ended up being the winning goal... although Rodriguez did temporarily level things up with a beauty of a flicked header from a corner only for it to be belatedly disallowed for an offside player who blocked off the keeper. There was also a claim of a penalty early in the game when Jay Rodriguez was knocked over but that one was let slide by the VAR. Kevin Long then had a shot blocked and Chris Wood had a goal-bound header at the far post which Jay Rod intercepted along with a defender and it ended up looping to safety. But despite the impression that might give you, Brighton were good value for the win. They were the better team for most of the game and Burnley just had to cop that. To be fair the Clarets were without a bunch of their usual starters. This was the fourth year in a row they’ve lost on the final day of the season. Not that it mattered.
Still buzzing on 14 goals in a Premier League season for Wood. Too good. It was just a bummer at the other end that as the goals conceded in this one cost Nick Pope his Golden Gloves chances. He needed a clean sheet here to tie Ederson of Manchester City, who concurrently shut out Norwich in a 5-0 hiding and effectively book himself the trophy whether he shared it or held it alone. Turns out he’ll hold it alone. 16 clean sheets for that fella. A mere 15 for Popey. Maybe next season.
Reading Menu
Monday Morning Dummy Half: Tonga Focus (NRL)
The Welly Nix Title Quest: The Understudy Showcase (Football)
2020 Aotearoa Cricket Landscape: Seamers and Seam Things (Cricket)
27fm Sounds of Aoteaora: Mid-July, 2020 (Music)
The Brooklyn Nets Are Still In Limbo Mode For NBA x Disney World (Basketball)
Tai Webster’s Coming Home! (And Some Other Breakers Free Agency Stuff) (Basketball)