El Niche Cache
December 14, 2020
The Niche Cast Podcast Menu
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Reading Menu
The Year of Aotearoa's 'Champ Cheese' Brandon Smith (NRL)
Monday Morning Dummy Half: Aotearoa Storm (NRL)
Gathering Wisdom From Steven Adams’ First Interview As A New Orleans Pelican (NBA)
2020/21 HBJ Shield: Second Round Wrap (Cricket)
Aotearoa vs West Indies: Who's Using What Bats? (Cricket)
2020/21 Ford Trophy: Ken McClure Only Deals In Hundies (Cricket)
Summer Scene Setting For City Kickboxing (UFC)
So, About This New National League Format... (Football)
The Wildcard’s NFL Picks - Week 14 (NFL)
27fm Album Jukebox – November 2020 (Music)
Scotty’s Word
Like you, I’ve been watching with glee as the Blackcaps continue to bully West Indies over the last few days. Hopefully Joshua Da Silva and Jason Holder can make this more of a contest today, although my overall vibe of balancing the joy of watching the skills on offer from the kiwis/basking in Blackcaps gratitude with this pesky feeling of the unknown, has lingered throughout this Test series.
Unknown in the sense that I don’t know how good the Blackcaps are in the world of Test cricket - primarily overseas business. The last time the Blackcaps played Test cricket overseas, they got smoked in Australia and I wasn’t too down on that as any slightly weakened Blackcaps team at that time was likely to suffer the same result. Right now, the Blackcaps feel like a better team and Kyle Jamieson’s the lead figure here as his presence is immense in terms of bowling skill, batting skill and how that can balance out the Blackcaps 1st 11.
Tom Blundell’s not Tom Latham, although he simply feels like a better option now than Jeet Raval did last summer. However you want to slice and dice this, the Blackcaps right now feel like the best version of the Blackcaps Test group in recent years. Feels like, looks like and smells like … yet we don’t know.
The good vibes and gratitude are legit, super legit. I’ve appreciated what the Blackcaps have done in the past five years of Test cricket in Aotearoa; maybe it’s watching all the bowlers (not just Jamieson) move the ball both ways, years of strength and conditioning that now amounts to a Test cricket team that is as athletic as any other team in the world, or whatever other layers of fun you can highlight. Fuck, maybe it’s just how NZC has finally invested in their own coverage via Youtube that makes it easier to step into these good vibes than before.
Nothing stands out to me as negative, or an issue.
Players may step out of form for a while, then they perform as Henry Nicholls did.
I’m not going to whip up, or pin-point an issue just for the sake of it and at the same time there is something deep within that has me eager to see this Blackcaps group take on the world, out in the world. I want to see how Jamieson’s presence could allow for a spinner to play in different conditions, perhaps how this group of seamers develop their use of reverse swing. Obviously all this fun batsmen need time overseas to push their batsmanship forward.
I’ve felt that way during this period, but more from an angle of wanting players to be tested. Now this same vibe is framed in my noggin’ as excitement, anticipation and when you take a geeze around the Test cricket world, when things settle down a bit with the shenanigans, other Test teams are in somewhat similar positions with their talent and team structure.
Winding it back to this lovely Monday morning in Aotearoa and in organising my Blackcaps thoughts, I need to embrace that balance. Aotearoa is peak Aotearoa when the sun is shining and the Blackcaps are having fun, providing fun. That’s palpable and there is a simmering pot of ‘how does this team stack up against another top-tier team in their nation?’ that has me pondering the next year or two of Blackcaps Test cricket.
Cameron Smith interview!
Brad Riddell new vlog…
Wildcard’s Notebook
The Queen’s Gambit is probably my favourite telly show that I’ve watched in 2020. New show, that is. I was in the process of a Wire rewatch during lockdown when we first launched this newsletter thing so yeah nothing’s competing with the best show ever made. But The Queen’s Gambit is superb. Classily shot, elegantly adapted from a very good (and highly recommended) Walter Tevis novel, some outstanding acting, straight up incredible set/costume design in the Mad Men mould where it’s accurate to the time period but it’s a heavily glamourised version of accurate, and most impressive of all is that the show has made chess sets one of the top selling gifts ahead of Christmas. Shout out to Beth Harmon.
There a few ways in which the show conveniently diverges from the book... the main one (which isn’t a spoiler in any way) is how rapid fire the chess games are. Like bullets flying in a Western, it’s all bang bang bang with zero time to even consider the opponent’s move. In the book there are spots where a character will spend literally an hour staring at the board deciding on the next move. But the show’s all about rock star chess.
I dunno if the masters out there are so well studied that they can read the board in a split second or not, I can’t ever seem to think more than three moves ahead at max so I’m not the one to ask. Sometimes it’s just snappy editing to keep the pace of the show going (there’s an amazing editing sequence at the US Champs in episode five). Sometimes it’s not. Regardless, I’ve got one episode left to watch and I’m absolutely digging it.
I don’t watch a lot of telly shows but here are a few other 2020 offerings that I’ve enjoyed:
What We Do In The Shadows
The Mandalorian
Late Night Big Breakfast
The Last Dance
Charlie Booker’s Antiviral Wipe
The Haunting Of Bly Manor
Normal People
The Plot Against America
And... that’s about it because like I said I don’t watch a lot of all this. I don’t even know where people find the time, to be honest. Maybe I should chuck The Chase on that list too for educational value. Love that show.
Keeping on the cultural tones... pretty stink to see that the great John Le Carre has passed away aged 89. The undisputed king of the political thriller. Le Carre is the bloke who took spy novels and made them literary high art.
Where James Bond was suave and idealistic, Le Carre’s protagonists were often painfully ordinary folk bogged down by life and bureaucracy. He’d been an intelligence man himself in a previous life and told yarns that were grounded in that realism... while also threading together intricate and fascinating plots that spoke to the global politics of several eras – from the cold war poise of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict of The Little Drummer Girl to the corporate corruption of The Constant Gardner and even his final novel, Agent Running In The Field, dealt with a Brexit-era England. All through the eras, always with his finger on the pulse. A genius of a writer. You could do a lot worse than to inhale a few of JLC’s bibliography over the summer months… there’s never been a bad book published bearing the name John Le Carre on the spine.
Also gotta toss this one in there...
Now for the headline act of the Wildcard’s Notebook every week...
Men’s Premiership Team Of The Week – Week 5
GK – Alex Paulsen (Wellington Phoenix) – Every single week, mate. I’ve never watched Alex Paulsen and not come away more impressed by him than I already was. He made several top saves on the way to a clean sheet against Hawke’s Bay in a 3-0 WeeNix win. Excellent with the ball at his feet too... what a player this guy is gonna be.
RB – Jaylen Rodwell (Wellington Phoenix) – Almost had Justin Gulley but he missed an open goal that cost his team a win so Rodwell jumps him. Really tidy defender out of the Ole Academy, been doing the job at CB to start the season but right back is probably where he has the most potential for when (not if) he goes professional one day.
CB – Tom Schwarz (Canterbury United) – Tried to give all the credit to CB partner Andrew Storer (who was also on the shortlist here) but Schwarzy deserves immense praise for a Canterbury defensive wall that repelled Auckland City over and over and over again before snatching victory on the break right at the end. Leadership from the back and also so assertive whenever the ball is in reach. Great old fashioned defensive prowess.
CB – Ben Mata (Team Wellington) – Subbed on in just the second minute as Taylor Shrijvers went off injured... almost got sent off as he played more than half this game with a yellow card... but his heavyweight contest with Stephen Hoyle and the way he constantly stepped up to win the ball and bust up Eastern Suburbs attacks was marvellous.
LB – Finn Surman (Wellington Phoenix) – Cheating here because there weren’t any standout LBs and Surman was so good in the middle for the Nix that it’d be a shame to leave him out. Has started two games now and been superb in both of them. Got three WeeNix defenders in here for a reason.
CM – Cory Mitchell (Canterbury United) – It wasn’t only the defenders repelling things for the Dragons. Mitchell has gone to a new level the last two weeks playing more as a midfield shield for his backline. Basically had squatter’s rights on those pockets outside the area that ACFC usually thrive in.
CM – Mario Ilich (Auckland City) – It was a weakened City defence this week but to have a guy as assured as Ilich in front of them made a huge difference. Enormous passing range, perfect positioning. They’d have been a little bit buggered without him – that might apply to the whole season, come to think of it.
CM – Mario Barcia (Team Wellington) – A return to the Mario Bros midfield of old, getting Ilich and Barcia in the same team. Barcia’s CM partner Wan Gatkek almost pipped him here but Barcia scored a brilliant and crucial goal to make the difference. Goals are the most important currency of all.
FW – Tommy Semmy (Hamilton Wanderers) – The MVP of the entire league at the moment, this is his fourth appearance in the TOW in five games. Not everything he tries pays off but he’s so relentlessly involved, so direct in his attacks, that every single game he’s pretty much guaranteed to be involved in game breaking moments. Sure enough, he scored for the third straight game this week.
FW – Alex Greive (Waitakere United) – Similar to Semmy but in a very different way. Greive is all guile and subtlety with his 360 degree passing awareness. He was unplayable in week one but a rotating cast of strike partners and some inconsistencies from the team around him have limited his end product since. Again this week he was full of clever passes that didn’t lead to goals... so right near the end he took it upon himself to whack in a dramatic equaliser for his third goal of the season.
FW – Ben Old (Wellington Phoenix) – That might be the best I’ve ever seen this guy play. He’s put on a bit of muscle since last year no doubt about it and that strength is only making his ball skills more dangerous. The way he drops to pick up the ball then turns the corner and runs straight at defenders is so thrilling. And he was doing it all day against HBU.