El Niche Cache
Podcast
TNC Variety Show - Episode 15
The Niche Cast - Pithy Wisdom (Player Recruitment Yarns)
Reading Menu
How Parramatta Eels Became The Funkiest Kiwi-NRL Team of 2021 (NRL)
Flying Kiwis – April 27 (Football)
Olympic Footy Draw Reaction & Squad Prediction Yarns (Football Ferns)
Olympic Footy Draw Reaction & Squad Prediction Yarns (OlyWhites)
Exploring Wellington Firebirds Recruitment and Player Development (Cricket)
2021 Aotearoa Blackcaps Spin Landscape (Cricket)
Scotty’s Word
NZ Warriors vs Cowboys…
Sketchy win vs Cowboys and NZ Warriors are now 7th (4-4), level with the Dragons and behind the five best teams. This was far from slick from the Warriors and one of those games that felt like it could slip away at any moment, yet they hung in and grabbed the W. Not only was there a bit of grit, with Reece Walsh in the team this is a really fun Warriors outfit.
Walsh has now played four games of big boy rugby league this year and while the fun bit of this is all about watching Walsh play, laying out the 18-year-olds stats from these games are equally as insightful. Remember this is a 18-year-old in his first year of playing reserve grade, let alone NRL…
Round 1 (Norths Devils): fullback - 2 tries, 1 linebreak, 5 tackle busts, 2 offloads.
Round 4 (Redcliffe Dolphins): half - 1 try, 1 linebreak, 4 tackle busts, 1 offload.
Round 7 (NZ Warriors): fullback - 2 try assists, 5 tackle busts, 2 offloads.
Round 8: half - 1 try assist, 1 linebreak, 5 tackle busts, 2 offloads.
In Queensland’s Intrust Super Cup and NRL, Walsh played his first game at fullback before moving to the halves. Weird symmetry there. In ISC Walsh had 3 tries and no try assists which became 3 try assists and no tries in the NRL, probably because Walsh has better players around him in the NRL to work with. Walsh has quickly jumped up to be tied with Kodi Nikorima and Wayde Egan for try assists and he’s one behind Roger Tuivasa-Sheck.
3 tries, 3 try assists, 3 linebreaks, 19 tackle busts, 7 offloads.
Something was different vs Cowboys though as Walsh moved from a hybrid fullback role vs Storm, to strictly halves business. This change in position resulted in vastly different play-making numbers…
vs Storm
Nikorima: 50 passes, 62 touches, 10 kicks.
Walsh: 16 passes, 34 touches, 4 kicks.
vs Cowboys
Nikorima: 46 passes, 53 touches, 1 kick.
Walsh: 26 passes, 49 touches, 14 kicks.
The kicking stuff stands out here and Walsh was in charge of long-range kicking, bombs for territory and short kicking. All kicking and he is left-footed, which is always handy. For a little dude, Walsh was hitting his kicks 50m when required and when combined with his running, passing and offloading is total package type of stuff.
Walsh only had to make 2 tackles vs Storm, then 6 vs Cowboys and he hasn’t been detrimental to the Warriors left edge defence. Chanel Harris-Tavita is a similar left-sided half and Walsh has shown skills that make him equally as funky in the halves and at fullback. I love Walsh in the halves while Tuivasa-Sheck is at fullback and Walsh’s pizzazz opens things up for Tuivasa-Sheck. Maybe an injection of speed and x-factor off the bench could be the go when Harris-Tavita is back?
Credit to Peter O’Sullivan who would have been the key figure in snaring Walsh. After re-freshing the roster over the off-season with solid NRL players, then the Warriors picked up Walsh and now it’s a phase of promoting from within. Rocco Berry and Edward Kosi are Kiwi-NRL debutants this year (joining Wiremu Greig and the 13 lads from last year), both of whom are signs of slick Warriors systems.
Berry was picked up via St Pat’s Silverstream 1st 15 and the Warriors rolled out the recruitment picnic to sign Berry. When the Warriors played in Wellington in 2019, Berry was brought in to the Warriors camp to catch a vibe and he’s worked his way through to looking like a really solid modern centre.
Kosi seemingly came up out nowhere to trial for the Warriors Jersey Flegg (U20) team late in 2018. The Mangere East Hawks junior went to De La Salle College and since that trial, he has climbed through the ranks to suddenly appear as a capable winger.
You know I’m all about the Kiwi-NRL takeover (16 Kiwi-NRL debuts in less than two seasons) and the Warriors only have so much roster space while there’s an abundance of Kiwi-NRL talent. O’Sullivan started in 2018 and the Berry/Kosi scouting happened roughly late 2018 before making moves in 2019 - now the seeds are bearing fruit.
How do you best use the NRL salary cap? Promoting juniors from within, while they are on their first contract and that’s exactly what his happening.
Will Young…
Will Young’s time with Durham has ended and he did manage a lovely century in the third game. Here’s Young chatting through it…
Lydia Ko…
Tied-7th at the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore and this is Ko’s 5th top-10 finish in seven tournaments played this year.
Mathematics…
Wildcard’s Notebook
Prior to the winter football season, I suspect most people could have had a decent guess as to which Central League clubs would occupy the three National League qualifying spots and as things stand those three are pretty much spot on. Miramar and Olympic are tied at the top, unbeaten through six games. Miramar just beat Wairarapa 8-1 on the weekend (Sam Mason-Smith with a hatty) while Olympic were a little friskier in having to come from 2-0 down at the half to win 4-2 away to Waterside Karori (82nd min equaliser from Jack-Henry Sinclair, then Dylan Wood scored the winner in stoppage time before Sinclair added another even later).
Those two play each other at the end of the month in what should be a belter... the pair of squads are pretty much Team Wellington split in half with a few happy additions. You’ve then got Western United with all their Ole Academy prospects sweeping into third place, they beat Petone 2-0 on Sunday, and that’s more or less as expected. Lower Hutt/Wellington Phoenix Academy automatically qualify for the National Legaue regardless.
The Northern League on the other hand is going ballistic and I’m not just talking about this...
But also I’m not not talking about that. Melville would not have been one of my top four picks preseason but they’re always pretty strong and they hit this week up with four wins from six sitting in third place. Two 1-0 wins and two 5-3 wins in there so maybe there was an element of funkiness but they were the team that stopped Western Springs’ perfect four-game start. They’d been going pretty great.
Then Melville travel up to Auckland and over the bridge to face Birkenhead and Alex Greive scores in the first minute. Then Greive scores twice more for a 16 minute hatty (he’s got 10 for the season, leading the Golden Boot standings). Three goals in the space of five minutes before the break got Alex Connor-McClean a hatty as well. Josh Turner and Jackson Woods had also scored and yeah there you go: 8-0 down at half-time. You couldn’t have possibly picked it. At least they did well to keep it to just the one Luke Jorgensen goal in the second stanza, only losing 9-0 in the end. Single figure mercies. Good God.
As if that wasn’t weird enough, Auckland City also lost. 3-2 to North Shore United, Horace James with the 80th minute winner against a City team that wasn’t quite at full strength but it wasn’t too far off. That bursts their perfect 5/5 start and it allows Auckland United to sneak ahead of them in first after they beat Western Springs 2-0 on Friday night (goals to Reggie Murati and Monty Patterson), albeit ACFC have a game in hand. Springs have lost three in a row after winning four straight to begin with.
Before anyone had played a game I had a look at the squads and tried to pick who I’d have in the top four. What I came up with was: Auckland City, Auckland United, Birkenhead United & Hamilton Wanderers. Three of them are in the four as it stands, to be fair, but only just. There are nine teams of the 12 who look like genuine contenders. The other three will be sweating it out knowing that relegation is a serious threat - Manukau plays West Coast Rangers this upcoming week which already looks massive for both teams. Good fun all around.
As for the Southern conference... they’re still in the regional phases deciding who’ll qualify for the South Island league later in the season and it looks like all the expected forces will be there… to the surprise of absolutely nobody. Cashmere Tech are leading the way in Mainland, undefeated after seven matches, while South City Royals (a new merger club of Caversham & Dunedin Technical) and Otago Uni are tied atop the Southern Premiership also after seven rounds. Top three in Southern and top five in Mainland will make up the Southern Conference. Top two in that Southern Conference qualify for the National League – from next year the Southern Conference will be it’s own second tier level with the Northern and Central Premier Leagues but this year’s wonky coz they have to figure out who qualifies for it first. The two best South Island teams effectively have three seasons in 2021 (plus cup footy).
Gotta look at the women’s comps too although know that only the Northern Conference has club qualifiers for 2021. Outside of Auckland/Waikato there’ll still be the Canterbury, Capital, Central, Southern teams. The WaiBOP region is the one most at risk there as other Auckland clubs come into the mix however last Women’s Premiership season it was basically the case that Eastern Suburbs ran the Auckland team and Northern Rovers ran the Northern Lights team.
Yet six games in it’s Western Springs who are undefeated and six points clear at the top, though they only drew for the first time this week. Northern Rovers were 3-1 up against them with twenty to play... but Rina Hirano scored an 82nd min penalty and then Lily Jervis levelled it up for Springs in stoppage time. Rovers and Suburbs are second and third on 10 points each in the other two qualifying spots – four points clear of Hamilton Wanderers who lost pace with a 3-1 defeat against Eastern Subs. Righto, so that’s you up to speed on National League matters then.
Elsewhere we’re only one round into the new NBL season in Aotearoa, a full proper legit season after the excellent Showdown extravaganza of last time, with ten teams competing as the league seeks to capitalise on the momentum of that 2020 version. It’s a little weird with players in the Aussie NBL not returning ‘til midway through (possibly even late in) the season so we might get one of those regular which doesn’t fully reflect how the playoffs will be. The Wellington Saints and Hawke’s Bay Hawks (neither of whom played Showdown) both still look fantastic on paper, probably the two favourites. Each came through round one with good wins – two of them for the Saints. But it shapes to be a much more wide open season than usual and already we’re being dished up some lovely basketball. Like how about a 26 point night for a 16 year old?
Dontae Russo-Nance, mate. 26 points on 11/17 shooting. He was born in 2005. He’s a Year 12 student at St Kentigern College. That’s some sheer insanity is what that is.
Now here are some numbers from the Parker vs Chisora fight...
Pretty interesting the way they scored that, though remember that these aren’t official numbers or anything. Compubox numbers don’t necessarily reflect what the judges see and that’s clear based on all this. By these yarns you’d have to agree with Derek Chisora’s assertion that he was robbed, robbed he tells ya, by the officials whereas watching it live it definitely felt like Parker tallied him up over the back stretch.
The thing to really focus on here though is the way that Chisora’s volume of punches fell off after the halfway point. Dude lost his lungs where as Parker kept it steady throughout with the superior fitness. Parker was often too passive, especially early on as he seemed to be deliberately trying to tire Chisora out and ultimately you’d have to say that worked given how it ended up. If Compubox are counting some of those mid-late rounds the way they did then that shows Parker needed to emphasise his stronger rounds better. It’s tricky when you’re not a power hitter, to be fair. I don’t really see the point in a rematch from Parker’s perspective but I s’pose he’s not really got a lot of leverage in the matter. And getting on the Fury-Joshua card, if indeed that one goes ahead, would be fantastic. Parker’s probably got more room to improve over the two of them.
Eh, nothing really makes sense for Joseph Parker these days anyway, just gotta roll with the punches as they say. That was a solid if unspectacular win for him... one which might even be the best win on his record. Obviously he lost to both Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte. His next best opponents in some order are: Carlos Takam, Andy Ruiz, Hughie Fury, Junior Fa & Derek Chisora. All of those were decision wins. Given that Chisora beat Takam it’s either him or Ruiz who gets to be the biggest W on Parker’s record. Ruiz is a mad fighter but he probably gets the nod out of respect for what he did to Anthony Joshua the first time.