El Niche Cache
February 19, 2021
Podcast
TNC Variety Show - Episode 5 (Over/Under Party)
iTunes | TNC | Youtube
Reading Menu
The Premmy Files – Men’s Premiership Week 12 (Football)
Flying Kiwis – February 16 (Football)
Some Thoughts On The The Welly Nix Amidst A Particularly Inconvenient Injury Crisis (Football)
It’s Been Sympathy Off The Court, Frustration On The Court For the Breakers So Far (Basketball)
Kiwi Steve in the NBA #3: Triple Threats (Basketball)
2020/21 Aotearoa Super Smash: Canterbury Magicians Championship Debrief (Cricket)
2020/21 Aotearoa Super Smash: Wellington Firebirds Championship Debrief (Cricket)
Aotearoa White Ferns vs England: ODI Business (Cricket)
Aotearoa Blackcaps vs Australia: T20I Series Preview (Cricket)
27fm Weekly Niche Cache Playlist: February 16 (Music)
27fm Sounds of Aotearoa: Mid-February 2021 (Music)
Scotty’s Word
Let’s start with a wee observation…
Teams and players around the world are competing in varying degrees of ‘niggly conditions’. From strict quarantine/bubble situations, impact of frequent testing on preparation and routines, along with less time spend training. Meanwhile sports media is generally working from home with not much going on depending on that countries protocol.
To survive, sports media is churning out content. Content is needed for business and most of the media has plenty of time to dissect every detail, then share the content.
It feels out of whack. Sports is happening under heavy adversity, thus impacting the quality and sports media is doing more analysis than ever - because there’s nothing else to do. Heavier analysis on a weaker product.
I’ve felt this in my own consumption of sports content and am eager to step out of this consumption pocket. For you, just be aware.
Quick little explanation of some sports agent stuff from MLB pitcher Trevor Bauer…
NRL trials are underway and here are my #KiwiNRL notes from the trial teams named…
Isaiah Papali’i played in last night’s trial for Parramatta Eels vs St George Dragons. Papali’i was named on an edge for the Eels, after doing both edge and middle with NZ Warriors.
Xavier Willison in Brisbane Broncos squad. Jesse Arthars is named at centre and former NZ Warrior Leivaha Pulu is named on an edge - it’s all about Willison though. Willison’s 18/19 years old and is now on a three-year deal. He’s unlikely to debut this year but will be a mandatory check in when Queensland Intrust Super Cup or Under 20s Hasting Deering Colts starts.
Willison’s last major NZRL rep team was 2017 Under 15 Merit team, from Wai Coa Bay Stallions (Waikato region rep team). Also in that team were the Roosters crop of the Graham-Taufa twins and Naufahu Whyte (see below), along with Simisi Sikei who was playing on the wing for Counties in the NZRL National Premiership over summer and then returned to Cronulla Sharks where he is a middle forward in their Under 19 SG Ball team.
Here’s Willison playing for Wai Coa Bay…
Darius Farmer is named to start in the middle for Gold Coast Titans and after a couple years on the Titans fringes, this should be the year that Farmer joins his 2017 NZ Under 18 comrades in making his debut; Hayze Perham, Mawene Hiroti, Matthew Timoko, Jaxson Paulo, Paul Turner, Jordan Riki, Peter Hola and Steven Marsters.
Also in that 2017 NZ Under 18 team, but yet to make their NRL debuts are Joseph Taipari and Kelma Tuilagi. Taipari is from Christchurch and was recruited by Parramatta Eels, Tuilagi is from Auckland and was recruited by Melbourne Storm. Both have moved to Wests Tigers and are named in this week’s trial squad.
Tuilagi is starting on an edge, with Rotorua’s Tukimihia Simpkins starting in the middle after he made a recent move to Tigers from North Queensland Cowboys. The Tigers have been busy recruiters, specifically of #KiwiNRL talent as they have former junior Warrior Israel Ogden in their trial squad as well, along with the SG Ball trio that I’ve mentioned before; Tamehana Pururu, Jarney Proctor-Harwood and Tray Lolesio.
But the Tigers aren’t done yet. Etuale Lui was a 2019 Junior Kiwi while with Parrmatta Eels and he moved to the Tigers ahead of last season, now in their trial squad. All of these #KiwiNRL youngsters on the Tigers roster were recruited from other clubs under the wisdom of Aotearoa Kiwis coach Michael Maguire. I’m not sure why, it seems like a clear ploy to bolster the Tigers roster with smart, efficient moves like this - the alternative is most other clubs recruit directly from Aotearoa.
Two Newcastle Knights names to watch out for: Christian Ma’anaima and Daniel Ticehurst. Both are named for this week’s trials. Ma’anaima is a Glenfield Greyhounds junior in Auckland who was recruited by the Knights, Ticehurst seems to have been at Aotea College in Wellington before moving to Brisbane, then the Knights. Both were named in the 2019 Junior Kiwis squad, Dicehurst played off the bench.
Finally, the Roosters. The Kelston Boys High School duo that I mentioned last week are both named: Naufahu Whyte and Aso Fretton. Fretton was playing Under 19s SG Ball last week, now an NRL trial. Named at fullback is former Warrior Brad Abbey, who after leaving the Warriors has been with the Bulldogs and Raiders.
Wildcard’s Notebook
The tough news keeps coming for the Breakers and the Phoenix. The Breakers just last night, mere hours after I published an article about their poor start to the season, announced rather tersely that Rob Loe would be returning to Aotearoa for the remainder of the campaign. That scoop had come out a little earlier via a couple Aussie journos though at that stage it was being left open whether Loe might return to the team before things were out. The Breakers statement, however, made it clear that would not be the case.
I don’t know about you but this statement doesn’t sit right with me. The Breakers have often had questionable media strategies of late (I remember when they signed Scotty Hopson and then just buried that news by unveiling him the same day as Dan Shamir) but even by their standards this is an odd one. Particularly that last sentence, which is the kind of thing that politicians say when they’ve been caught sleeping with their secretary...
This does appear to have been kinda short notice (although organising international travel these days is far from a spontaneous process), whereas the one I’m about to compare it to was a known situation for several weeks leading up to it... but when the Warriors lost four players as they returned home from the bubble mid-season in 2020 they offered up 15 paragraphs, including an extended quote from the club CEO in which he spoke of “fully understanding the predicament”, appreciating the sacrifices those players had already made, and thanking them for everything. There was also a quote from the Players’ Association boss.
The Breakers on the other hand served up four paragraphs with no quotes, no well wishes, seemed more focussed on the team’s impending NBL Cup efforts, and generally gave off the impression (whether accurate or not, I’ve got no idea what’s happening behind the scenes) of the big cold shoulder. Rob Loe has a wife and a newborn kid at home. The practicalities of this season are beyond what anyone signed up for. Come on, man. Sorta reminds me of when Mike Fitchett re-signed and some of the stuff that Matt Walsh had to say in the aftermath. This is from a Stuff article from October 2019...
“Dan is a very demanding coach and that's why we put him in, because we have high expectations as a club and Dan knows what I expect from the club. Dan doesn't run things like KB [Braswell] for example. It's very detailed and it's a lot of work. There's big expectations. To be resigning six days before the start of the season after coming on an NBA trip like this, I wasn't that interested in hearing a whole lot from him.”
"It is what it is. We're six days out from the start of the season. The good thing is we're the New Zealand Breakers, we're one of the most attractive jobs there is in international basketball, if not the most. Now Dan will be able to build his own staff and there's a lot of value in that.”
"The way I run our organisation is I have high expectations and I demand a lot from my employees. Dan is the same way as a coach. There are certain people who are built for that and step up and want to be a part of that and want to be part of the next step of the Breakers and where we're taking the club... there's some people who aren't built for that.”
Demanding high expectations... that’s why they signed Glenn Rice Jr a couple weeks later, right? And the way that Kevin Braswell left the club still hasn’t been fully brought into the light. There were legal proceedings, seemingly due to Braswell being made redundant rather than fired, meaning no payout on the rest of his contract. He obviously wasn’t being made redundant for real because you can’t just eradicate the head coaching role... hence why they unveiled Shamir as the ‘Director of Basketball’. Seems this season that they’ve just reverted to ‘coach’ again though, letting down the world’s worst disguise. Braswell’s never spoken about that situation or if there was any resolution, not that I’ve heard of anyway, but I have noticed Walshy make a few of those little disparaging allusions to KB’s season in charge. Hmm. As for possibly being the most attractive job in international basketball… lol.
Meanwhile nobody’s left the Wellington Phoenix squad yet – in fact they just added a dude in Charles Lokoli-Ngoy, a backup striker who was with the group in preseason, nothing too fancy there – but they do have David Ball out suspended for the next two games while the latest injury updates aren’t too flash...
Luke DeVere out for up to three months. Tomer Hemed with another week or two on top of his initial diagnosis. Josh Laws requiring scans doesn’t sound too promising with three games coming up in eight days starting on Sunday. At least Cam Devlin is fit and healthy, he’s going to be an essential piece of the puzzle with his defensive work in midfield given how compromised that back four is going to look. Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi deserves a good run of games, fingers crossed he bosses the show. It’s going to be a terrifyingly inexperienced group with whoever partners him though.
I know the exciting thing to say is that they should sign Brian Kaltack or Adam Mitchell or Sam Brotherton or Taylor Schrijvers or even Scott Hilliar’s name is one I’ve seen mentioned a couple times. All would be worth a look but realistically none are coming in on short notice like that. Not gonna happen. Same deal with James Musa, who is better suited to slip into the team coming off a season of MLS footy but again I just don’t see it happening. More likely is someone like Tim Payne or Alex Rufer slides into CB as an emergency option.
Quick shout out to Ryan Thomas who played the best part of 85 minutes for PSV in the Europa League knockouts this morning. Played the first 70 as an attacking midfielder, which is where he’s been used most often lately, drifting around, trying to provide a link between midfield and attack, swinging in excellent crosses, making sharp and decisive runs, etc. Then the next quarter of an hour he dropped into a deeper midfield role after some subs were made, before he himself was replaced late on.
PSV were away to Olympiakos and they showed some nice flashes... but god that defence is a shambles. Conceded four times. Twice equalised but their errors were more plentiful than their game-breaking attacking spots. 4-2 the final score... two handy away goals to take back home but they’re going to need to be supreme in the second leg to have a chance, pity they conceded that fourth one late on. Thommo was one of their better ones, he actually had the best passing completion in the side despite playing mostly in the attacking third, but yeah not a great day at the office for the Dutch club.
Still, that made Ryan Thomas the first New Zealand man to play in the knockout stages of the Europa League/UEFA Cup since Ryan Nelsen did so for Blackburn more than a decade ago. Blackburn Rovers against Bayer Leverkusen in February 2007. Bayer went through 3-2 on aggregate. Nelsen played all 180 minutes. A couple blasts from the past names involved in that tie...
Also I’ve been doing a bit of research since we’ve had CJ Bott’s Champions League debut (read all about it in this week’s Flying Kiwis) and now Ryan Thomas in the Europa League knockouts. Bit of a theme to follow. Thomas has now played more Europa games than any other NZer apart from Wynton Rufer. Hopefully next season PSV can make the Champions League and he can start hunting down Wynton’s records in that comp too... though good luck with that when the team defends as awful as they did in Greece.
Okay, right, now clear your head entirely because I have to share with you this new Adam Curtis documentary. Six episodes, all well over an hour long. It’s like eight hours of that distinct Adam Curtis style all digging into the emotional state of modern society using various character examples from history… ah man I can’t explain it. Here you go anyway. It’s not for everyone but it’ll click for some of you…
Then if you need a palette cleanser afterwards I can recommend nothing higher than to let this audio bombardment lay siege to your eardrums for an hour and change…