El Niche Cache

May 18, 2020

The Niche Cache

May 17, 2020

‘In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity’

The Art of War - Sun Tzu

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Scotty’s Word

Couple of interesting things from the weekend…

Ardie Savea had Nehe Milner-Skudder on his podcast, featuring all sorts of good yarns. I love how Savea is leading the way for discussion around mental wellbeing and connection for culture, all of which comes outside the mainstream media bubble. Savea and Milner-Skudder chat about all those things and also relating to the mainstream media.

I don’t come across too many interesting yarns via Fox Sports Australia, this one breaking down how Tongan rugby league got to this position is fairly insightful. It confirms an idea I had about Tonga coach Kristian Woolf having a hearty relationship with Jason Taumalolo - they worked together in Townsville when Taumalolo moved from South Auckland to Australia - and how that was a key factor in the Tongan revolution.

Also notable was the idea of ‘Anga fakatonga’. At the time, everyone talked about how the Tongan players were giving up big cash stacks to play for Tonga (then those trusted with leading Tonga Rugby League decided to steal the money), yet that’s a very greedy/money-hungry mindset that doesn’t align with anga fakatonga. When aligned with anga fakatonga, sacrificing material stuff to represent Tonga is an easy decision.

Here’s a few words from that Fox Sports yarn…

“Before then, it was, shall we say, a very rugby league culture, the boys would want to get on the piss and punch on. We had to prioritise what was important – respecting our people, and going back to anga fakatonga, the Tongan way…

“All these boys, even though they were born in New Zealand and Australia, they grew up living the Tongan way from their parents,” he said. “They’ve always wanted to represent their families.”

As Professor Helen Lee of La Trobe University explains: “Anga fakatonga is a concept that shapes how children are brought up with values such as respect, humility and honouring your culture.”

Very interesting times for Aotearoa Warriors ahead of the NRL’s restart and I found this video of Hayze Perham spinning wise yarns at Rotorua Boys High School..

The idea of using class as mental preparation for training after school is funky and something that youngsters can take on board.

Not sure how many of youz like baseball stuff, I’m a sports coach and a sports nerd so I love hearing about how athletes get better and here’s some hitting details from Christian Yelich via Jomboy

From the cartel files:

Head down an ‘El Chino Antrax’ rabbit hole if you get bored. This dude was the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel’s ‘Antrax’ which is effectively a military grade group of shooters tasked with defending the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel - if you think that everything stopped when El Chapo got arrested then maybe head down a Sinaloa Cartel rabbit hole first.

Chino Antrax was arrested by Interpol in Amsterdam a few years back, then kinda helped USA build their case against Chapo. Chino then spent time in USA jail, before being released on a house-arrest kinda thing, from which he escaped late last week and fled back to Mexico. Yesterday reports came out that Chino Antrax was killed in Culiacan (Sinaloa’s main city) along with his sister and brother in law.

There ya go.

Wildcard’s Notebook

Football returned this past weekend. The German Bundesliga, you already know that because I wrote a bunch about it in Friday’s newsletter. And I’m paying the cost for this now but the prospect of live footy was too enticing for me not to stay up until dumbarse o’clock on Saturday night to watch Borussia Dortmund vs Schalke, a game which Dortmund won comfortably. It required an unfortunate combination of whisky and coffee to keep me up that late and there was a psychic burden to be told as well as I passed the hours beforehand watching the latest Nick Cave concert film, rewatching Silence of the Lambs, and reading a Toni Morrison novel... and that quantity of insight into the human soul all at once is a threat to anyone’s sanity let alone when you add my sleep deprivation and liquid sustenance (I also knocked back a half bag of twisties, perhaps that’s what kept me grounded enough to maintain my logical faculties).

Anyway, the football was great. Dortmund played beautifully and it wasn’t even quite their top team. Everyone wants to talk about Erling Haaland but Julian Brandt, Thorgen Hazard, and Raphael Guerreiro were supreme. That side plays at such an entertaining pace, no meaningless possession just hard and flat passes into the forward trio’s feet, quick layoffs, and rapid incisive movement all over the place. A couple lovely goals too and you know what? The lack of crowd was no dramas at all. It may have been weird for the players but they’ve all played closed-door games before and the standard was high enough so they obviously were able to handle it. It’s either this or no footy at all. Might as well give it a try.

Unfortunately the commentators didn’t get that memo. I mean, I realise this is a unique situation we find ourselves in but I really didn’t need to be reminded of it at every possible opportunity. We all know what’s happening, dude. Were I a telly producer, I’d be raging at hearing a person hired to complement and compliment the product out there on the pitch instead diminishing it like that. To be fair, that’s something I get tweaked by in normal times too – overly negative commentators. Like, leave that to the pundits in the studio, that ain’t your job. The best commentators are the ones who seem to genuinely love the sport they talk about, the worst ones are the ones who seem to think they’re there to hold everyone to unreasonable standards. You can criticise without being negative about it too, it’s easy, just don’t make it sound like you’re relishing it.

It’s been a little tricky to come up with ideas to write about without new sporting events to discuss, so one of the things I’ve been leaning on is historical context type things. I’ve been compiling stats and things like that. A few cricket things. There was that Champions League one. A big exploration into kiwis in the MLS. And mirroring the MLS is the NWSL, the top level American women’s competition which last time I checked was still extending its training moratorium so the 2020 season is only getting further away but here are some statties instead... not quite enough to fit into a full article unless that full article is all about Abby Erceg’s greatness (and I’ve written that one before, tbf).

The NWSL began in 2013, the latest in a long line of USA club leagues that came and went but so far this one has stuck around. It’s weird that the strongest national team in the world struggles so much to sustain a domestic competition. No kiwis were there that first year but Abby Erceg and Emma Kete both arrived in 2014. Kete only played 25 combined minutes however Erceg built her way into that Chicago Red Stars team with 26 games over two seasons, including starting a semi-final in 2015 (she was subbed off at the half with her team desperate for attackers having conceded a few early ones). In 2016 she moved to Western New York Flash, the same year that Katie Bowen entered the league.

WNYF would win a dramatic grand final over Portland on penalties that season, Erceg’s first title. WNYF then moved to North Carolina to become the North Carolina Courage and in three years she’s won three more NWSL Shields (first place in the regular season) to go with the WNYF one, as well as two more grand finals (they lost a revenge game to Portland in 2017). Erceg has made seven NWSL Teams of the Month, she’s been 1st XI Team of the Year once and 2nd XI twice, and in 2019 she won Defender of the Year. With 117 games over her NWSL career so far she’s well ahead of anyone else. That includes nine playoff appearances too whereas only Rosie White has even played one from the rest of the NZ contingent. Incredibly she’s only gotten three yellow cards in her last four seasons combined.

Katie Bowen is next. Four straight years in the league with FC Kansas City and Utah Royals adding up to 72 games. Never played a semi-final although they only just missed out in 2019. Only three career assists is a bit surprising, maybe if 2020 gets going then she can add a bunch more to that tally, the last two years she’s increasingly been a first choice player (albeit at right back). Then there’s Rosie White who leads the way with seven goals (from 43 games). She once led the entire league in yellow cards with Boston Breakers in 2017, more in that one season than Abby Erceg has in 117 games. White also had a stunted time with Chicago Red Stars after Boston folded (stunted because of her foot injury), before finding herself at Seattle last year and scoring a couple important goals in the middle of an injury crisis. She was an unused sub by the time of the semis though, with those injured players returning. And the other one to mention is Rebekah Stott. 31 games over two seasons with Seattle Reign and then Sky Blue. She was very good with the former but after being traded she had an injury plagued season with a pretty rubbish team and has been playing in Norway in between W-League successes in Australia. Five players (Erceg, Bowen, White, Stott & Kete), with Ali Riley signed up with Orlando to make that six if/when the 2020 season eventually begins.

To finish, I found out last night that David Lynch has been doing a daily thirty second weather report from his workshop shed and it’s so banal and unnecessary and confusing I love it.