El Niche Cache
March 5, 2021
Podcast
TNC Variety Show - Episode 7
The Niche Cast - The Debutante Ball (UFC 259)
Reading Menu
Flying Kiwis – March 3 (Football)
The Premmy Files – Men’s Premiership Week 14 (Football)
2020/21 Ford Trophy: Wait, Northern Districts Knights Cracked the Final? (Cricket)
Aotearoa White Ferns ODI Woes Deep Dive (Shout Outs Brooke Halliday) (Cricket)
2021 City Kickboxing UFC Tracker: Dan Hooker Set The Tone, Now UFC 259 (UFC)
Scotty’s Word
UFC 259 Preview…
Peripheral NZ Warriors matters…
Remember how NZ Warriors linked up with Redcliffe Dolphins in Queensland? Now we’ve got our first glimpse at this partnership in action with Sebastyan Jack named at halfback for Redcliffe Dolphins Mal Meninga Cup (Under 18) team.
The Marist Saints junior (perhaps the biggest NRL production line from Auckland at the moment) played five games for NZ Warriors SG Ball (U18) last year and while a cluster of players have moved to Australian clubs from last year’s Warriors SG Ball team, we know that the Dolphins have this partnership with Warriors.
Jack seems to be the only player linked to the Warriors in this Dolphins outfit. I expect a young group to line up for the Dolphins reserve grade team, maybe a couple in the Dolphins Under 20s team when that starts. The Warriors also have a bunch of players in the NZRL National Under 20s Premiership across two Auckland teams and as most of these lads (Ali Leiataua, Zyon Maiu’u etc) are 18/19 years old, maybe younger; what’s the difference between Jack and these lads back in Aotearoa?
My hunch is that the Warriors under Peter O’Sullivan and Phil Gould are very specific in their pathways. For Jack, moving to Redcliffe may have suited his family situation, his personality and/or coming from Rutherford College may have been a factor compared to the likes of Leiataua, Maiu’u and others who are playing 1st 15 rugby at the big Auckland schools (Kelston’s a hearty 1st 15 school).
Not that either is better or worse, it’s just catered to the individual. This is a low key idea across all NRL recruitment out of Aotearoa as some lads are left in Aotearoa to finish their schooling with whanau while partaking in camps and training stuff, while others are brought across the ditch to go to school and live in that NRL club’s system. Jordan Riki was on the Broncos books for a long time, but he only left Christchurch once he finished school.
The Warriors also published a yarn about how they’re keeping a close eye on the NZRL Under 20s competition, along with hosting a camp in Rotorua for boys and girls. They will then host camps in Christchurch and Tokoroa in the coming months. Tony Iro and Stacey Jones are not in Australia with the NRL team, they are in Aotearoa sorting through all this junior stuff.
Fantastic. These are the wrinkles of development that I expected with O’Sullivan and Gould in charge. Keep this in mind as every NRL joker off contract is linked to the Warriors and as we saw with Jahrome Hughes, the Warriors offer was built up by the media only for Hughes to stay with Melbourne. Of course the Warriors will make recruitment moves, but…
A) They best moves are low key - Bayley Sironen for example.
B) With more efficient and effective junior systems, why would the Warriors pay above market value when they trust their development pipelines (that they have built)?
Learn from Pat Lam and Dan Carter…
Wildcard’s Notebook
I’m writing this in the midst of a tsunami warning across large areas of Northland so bear that in mind if I get a little weird. My phone keeps buzzing with alerts and the group chats are going bonkers. As per usual, Stevie Wonder knows where to go though...
Topic number one for discussion today. It’s always a little funky when the Wellington Phoenix drop those announcement announcements. Watch this space, emojis everywhere. You know the drill. There’s a signing afoot…
The last time they added someone to the squad it was Charles Lokoli-Ngoy who was just a locally based fella that had worked with Ufuk Talay in the past and trialled with the club in preseason. A nice bit of depth, perhaps, but nobody who was gonna move the needle. Probably just gonna be one like that, right? Or a few WeeNix lads jetting over at the completion of their national league season.
Except, say, isn’t the Indian Super League into it’s final stages now? Yes, it is. And Steven Taylor’s team finished last so they didn’t make the knockouts. Their season actually ended a week ago. It couldn’t be... could it!?
That’s about as good a piece of news as we could have hoped for from a Phoenix Announcement. I know there are those of you out there who miss Matti Steinmann’s defensive midfield work – I was definitely on the pro-Matti bus last season as it was so clear that when he didn’t play the Nix were missing something. But at least with Cam Devlin and Alex Rufer there were natural replacements who bring their own quality to the midfield roles. Steven Taylor was not replaced at all when he left.
And it showed. Boy did it show. Some of the goals this team has been conceding, particularly from set pieces, have been embarrassing and with Luke DeVere’s long term injury things were only getting more worrisome. Tim Payne did a nice job there in the last few games but that still feels like a stopgap solution. Payne did play CB for Eastern Suburbs in their title run, sure, but that’s a very different level and even there his natural aggression made him a red card/penalty risk at all times. Absolutely worth the gamble in the current situation and he’s done pretty well to be fair, bringing a bit of vocal, front-foot defending to the team as a sort of mini-Stevie T. But there’s nothing like the real deal.
The question now is who partners him when he’s ready to go. Tim Payne has probably played the best of all the CBs on show in his limited offerings. Josh Laws does provide that left footed contrast and his limitations will be covered nicely by Taylor’s strengths. Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi played well in partnership with Stevie T last season and hasn’t had much of a chance since. Liam McGing… well I don’t wanna be a dick so I won’t say anything about Liam McGing’s last couple games. It all looks rosier with Steven Taylor in the mix though.
Taylor does have to do two weeks of quarantine in Aussie before he can join up with the lads. He’s already in the country but yeah gotta get through a couple more games without him before that #27 jersey makes it onto a team sheet. Taylor has joined on a permanent basis but only until the end of the season. We’ll take what we can get for now. Viva la Long Pins.
Now for topic of discussion number two. Just last night I published a debrief of the Parker vs Fa fight which included these two paragraphs:
There had been this narrative leading into this bout, including from his own camp, that Parker to win with a showcase performance. Something that’d get people talking. Safe to say that did not happen, otherwise Joe Parker and Kevin Barry wouldn’t both be talking about this as a C+ performance (Higgins on the other had rated it as a ‘W’, lol), reiterating that line about how things were so good in training but for whatever reason he wasn’t able to translate that into the ring.
Which makes you wonder... after watching another example of Parker winning without looking spectacular, of Parker going up against a ranked opponent and not putting out his best display, on a night where Junior Fa’s tactical approach seemed to get so much right... is it perhaps time for a change in trainer for JP? How would he have fared against Dillian Whyte with a CKB gameplan? Parker is an incredibly skilled fighter but he still makes some annoying mistakes. He doesn’t seem to have the variety to change his angles up when Plan A isn’t working. This thing of Parker not hitting his potential in the ring has happened once too often and Kevin Barry has to cop some blame for that.
Sure enough, this morning I added a little update to that piece as news came out that Joseph Parker and Kevin Barry had indeed undertaken a conscious uncoupling. Plenty of folks have been calling for that for ages; I held off that for the most part but after the Fa performance it finally felt necessary. There are other factors involved too as Barry lives in Las Vegas whereas Parker, with a young family, no longer wants to spend half the year overseas training... especially not during a pandemic. But the boxing side has to have been massive. Kevin Barry got him to a certain point... then Parker sorta stalled. He’s come away from basically all of his big fights with the feeling that he didn’t quite reach his potential. There’s a brilliant skill to how he fights yet he seems to lack nuance in how he throws his punches, how he works angles, how he targets his opponents’ weak points. Time for some new voices to get involved if he truly wants that second wave to his career that he’s targeting.
A funny aspect of all this is that Parker and CKB had a little back and forth before the fight. Eugene Bareman dropped the nugget that Parker had once asked to come into the gym and look around, maybe have a chat. Parker replied he was only keen on a cup of tea and some traded notes. Bareman replied that he’d email him the membership fees. It was pretty funny... but now you have to wonder with the prestige that CKB have earned on the MMA side of things, and with that fight proving that there’s a very legit boxing side of things there too (Junior Fa leading the way while Hemi Ahio and Panuve Helu both got wins on the undercard – Helu’s was announced as a draw but it turns out that was old mate Lieutenant Dan reading a score wrong due to a deducted point that hadn’t been crossed off properly or something silly)... coupled with an apparent desire from Parker to spend more time in Aotearoa... it gets one to thinking, is all I’m gonna say.
(It’s not like he’s got much time to take applications – they’re talking about Parker vs Chisora at the start of May, just two months after the Junior Fa bout)
Now here’s a fantastic new tune from one of the absolute peak kiwi bands out there these days, love these guys...