Fumbling Possession
Welly Nix newsreel, Cricket/Rugby League pathways, Ally Green x Footy Ferns & the Breakers do it again
Podcast
TNC Variety Show 56
The Niche Cast: Good Faith Yack
Reading Menu
All Whites WCQ Quest: 7-1 vs New Caledonia, Moving Up The Gears (Football)
Diary Of An Aotearoa Warriors Fan: Third Halves Combo! (NRL)
Flying Kiwis – March 22 (Football)
All Whites WCQ Quest: A 4-0 Win Over Fiji In Which Chris Wood Did The Inevitable (Football)
Appreciating Hannah Wilkinson’s Goal-Stacked A-League Season (Football)
Scotty’s Word
Building things out…
Cricket and rugby league are in a super funky phase. Blackcaps, White Ferns and Plunket Shield all being played at the moment. NRL, NRLW, NZRL Under 20s, NZRL Women’s Premiership and age-group regional stuff is also being played at the moment.
And Under 19 wahine T20 development cricket via NZC. This busy phase for these two sports (also a bunch of kiwi sports) has thrown up some interesting ideas and the announcement of this wahine development camp is timely given White Ferns stuff.
Sara McGlashan is the boss of this development camp, as part of her ‘NZC High Performance Coach - Female Pathways’ role. According to her LinkedIn profile, McGlashan took up this gig in September last year after spending a couple years with Cricket Tasmania in a female pathways role. McGlashan was a fabulous White Fern who also led the WBBL contingent and has invested her time in coaching growth.
I doubt McGlashan played any role in White Ferns World Cup stuff - Bob Carter and Jacob Oram seemed to have that all sorted. This feels like McGlashan’s first hefty move and thus, we move a step closer to greater development opportunities for young wahine cricketers - including South Auckland’s Carol Agafili!
Aotearoa women’s cricket is not doom and gloom. It’s actually fantastic but the current regime fumbled possession to portray a different vibe. NZC sells sponsorship and advertising to the highest overseas bidder (usually Indian) for a reason. More women’s domestic cricket, more development camps, more tours outside the WF bubble.
The talent already exists, greater focus is required. Having someone like McGlashan who has built her career specifically around coaching young wahine is where this focus comes from. Women’s cricket is a vastly different game to the blokes and working with girls is vastly different to working with dudes.
Australia women have built out their set up to be independent of the blokes. The WBBL is a stand alone event, not tied to BBL. The women’s team has made themselves an attraction drawing big crowds and growing sponsorship just for the women’s team. Everything in Aotearoa still feels tied to men’s sport in a variety of different ways and that’s lazy.
I’m curious to see how McGlashan impacts this development pipeline. Wellington and Otago have already established the two best women’s development systems, while young players continue to impress for each domestic team. Forget the funding resources, focus energy on building out women’s cricket. Building out from solid grassroots foundations, building out from men’s cricket shadow.
Cool little excursion for Kate Ebrahim and Eden Carson to play in USA. Ebrahim is definitely among the top-15 female cricketers in Aotearoa and should have been a World Cup squad member, Carson is perhaps a better spinner (/fielder) than Fran Jonas.
The same process is evident in rugby league. This is the first weekend of NZRL Women’s Premiership and I tied in some relevant notes to the NRLWahine preview. 2022 is also a World Cup year for rugby league and while roughly 20 Kiwi Ferns eligible players are competing in NRLWahine, we now have the Women’s Premiership providing opportunities at the same time.
I’ve been a curious observer as NZRL fine-tunes their development system. More wahine tournaments at the age-group levels and greater crossover between top level women’s rugby league in Aotearoa with NRLWahine. Combine this with the longer process of adjusting to the NRL need for Aotearoa talent and rugby league is building out its foundations at the grassroots level.
NZRL doesn’t develop players for NZ Warriors. NZRL develops Aotearoa rugby league and while Warriors integrate their juniors into NZRL competitions, NZRL is now doing a nice job of providing for all players in Aotearoa. The notable thing here is that NRL clubs are allowing juniors to stay in Aotearoa to finish school because of the rising quality in Aotearoa. The National Under 20s Competition is decent quality and most NZRL stuff is streamed, thus allowing NRL clubs easy scouting access.
Many Kiwi-NRL juniors move straight to Australia as soon as they can. Many are moving with their families as well. Most importantly there is a variety of entry points and NZRL have built out their grassroots system to bolster the Kiwi-NRL momentum.
‘Showcase’ comes to mind when pondering the NZRL angle. Games and tournaments feel designed to showcase talent while also providing opportunity to play footy for everyone. Cricket obviously has a different system but the general premise of providing games for players to showcase their talents is still evident. This feels relevant in a cultural/society sense: provide young folks with the space to do what they love to do.
That’s all you need to do.
There is an intriguing difference between the strength of Aotearoa women’s cricket and the White Ferns woes. None of the White Ferns woes reflect the health of women’s cricket in Aotearoa because those woes stem from non-players making silly decisions. The players feature world-class veterans who would waltz into any professional gig tomorrow. Oh and the best youngish player in the world Amelia Kerr.
Super Smash has been building steadily and HBJ Shield is fun to follow, yet Super Smash is linked to blokes and HBJ Shield only happens on weekends. Regardless, young players are impacting domestic cricket and this is most evident in the rise of Otago Sparks under coach Craig Cumming.
My journey in tracking and learning about women’s cricket has been fantastic, because so many positive signs are present. My journey in documenting the Kiwi-NRL takeover has been equally as fun and while this started with more players recruited from Aotearoa playing in the NRL, it led me into greater understanding of the grassroots landscape.
I am emphatic in my Kiwi-NRL takeover belief because matters in Aotearoa are aligned with the NRL growth. I feel that same emphatic belief in women’s cricket because of the grassroots growth and well, youngsters still seem to love playing sport. These are my busiest sporting pockets right now and not only are all levels of either sport proving fun to follow, they provide plenty of learning as well. Tap in.
Bit of Te Kaahu (Theia) and South Auckland’s Lukan Raisey for the vibe…
Wildcard’s Notebook
The Welly Nix Newsreel
There’s been plenty of Wellington Phoenix news this week. So much Wellington Phoenix news. Here’s a quick recap...
Oli Sail, Ben Waine & Ben Old made their All Whites debuts, with Ben Waine scoring the winner in a 1-0 victory over Papua New Guinea
Sam Sutton signed a 2-year contract extension
Clayton Lewis scored his first international goal in a 4-0 All Whites win vs Fiji (in which Waine & Sail also started)
Updates to NZ covid restrictions meant that the Welly Nix could finally confirm a pair of home fixtures to be played later in the season, one in Wellington and one in Auckland
Scott Wootton signed a 3-year contract extension
Gary Hooper ruled out for six weeks with a calf injury, Jaushua Sotirio ruled out for a month with a hamstring injury, and Josh Laws ruled out for two weeks with an ankle injury
Some very good and some very bad in there. The two contract extensions are excellent, Sammy Sutts and Scotty Wootts both jumping on board for the long term – signed through the 2024-25 season. Sutton was already under contract for another year so hopefully he just got a decent pay rise to reflect his rapidly rising role within the team.
As for Wootton, he only ever signed on a short-termer until the end of the season but you got the feeling he was definitely open to a longer stay if things went well. He’s now had his integration period and he’s gone all in. Considering what a difference he’s made to that backline, and what a different Steven Taylor made to that backline before him, and how flimsy they looked without an import CB earlier in the season... that’s an outstanding bit of news. Right up there with the home game stuff.
The injury yarns, on the other hand... yikes. Already had captain Alex Rufer go down for the year and when I wrote about that one of my main points was about how the team can probably cope with that knock but it does bring them quite a bit closer to the point where their depth is tested beyond its capability. They just got smoked by Newcastle last game with eight players unavailable for various reasons. That included at least five guaranteed starters and every team in the A-League is going to have big trouble dealing with an absentee list that long.
Which, okay, fine. That game was a write-off (with the exceptions of ALM debuts for George Ott and Jackson Manuel, sweet as). But Alex Rufer isn’t coming back this season. Gary Hooper may not either even with the term being stretched out into May. Hooper hasn’t been much of a factor for ages due to his hefty injury dramas but there was always a hope that he’d come back to maximum prominence again and supply his goal-scoring guarantee. Dude has four goals and an assist in 525 minutes, a killer strike-rate.
But he’s now potentially played his last game for the club, who have agreed to waive the second year of his contract. Hooper’s been separated from his family this whole time and it turns out that was why he left for personal reasons a few months back: so he could spend Christmas with his wife and kids. Can’t argue with that, to be honest.
At least Reno Piscopo is close to a return which makes up for Sotirio dipping out. But Tim Payne is away with the All Whites for the next game or two so Scott Wootton is going to need a new CB partner in the meantime. Presumably Matt Bozinovski or Finn Surman... both inexperienced options. Surman started against Macarthur earlier in the campaign so he’s probably ahead in the pecking order.
Tell you what else this means, Ben Waine is going to get a decent run of games just as he’s getting his confidence back to a boil. Scored a beaut in his last Nix game, scored on debut for the All Whites. There’s still so much potential to what the Phoenix can achieve this season but these injuries are really taking them close to the tipping point and a lot of their success may depend on whether Ben Waine can take another step in his career.
While we’re on the topic, the National League begins again this weekend just as spectators are allowed back to venues without restrictions... so that’s cool. The Welly Nix academy are no longer bound to competing as Lower Hutt City, now cleared by NZF to wear the Nix badge and colours although that connection will continue in some of the lower grades.
The WeeNix face Miramar Rangers first up in the Central League, a very tough fixture and it’ll be interesting to see where they stand as they move into the next generational wave of players. Most of this squad did get good minutes in the South Central Series though. As much as they’ll miss the likes of Kurtis Mogg, Oskar van Hattum, Finn Surman, Jackson Manuel, Alex Paulsen, etc. that transition began with the SCS and coach Chris Greenacre’s got plenty to work with here...
A few fellas to watch... Riley Bidois is probably the most experienced bloke here. Quick striker who scores plenty of goals. Josh Rudland scored a heap in the SCS as well. Alby Kelly-Heald is a tall, talented goalie who split time with Henry Gray in the SCS and Gray is obviously now over in Oz with the first team. Defs a fan of Fin Conchie in the midfield. Isaac Hughes looks a good player at the back too. Also seems Fergus Gillion has switched over from Western Suburbs.
Footy Ferns Fullback Recruiting
Say would you look at this...
Legit didn’t even realise she was eligible for Aotearoa... but there ya go. Former Aussie U20 rep and Sydney FC fullback Ally Green has announced that she’s switching allegiances to play for the Football Ferns and will be a part of the squad that plays twice against Australia next month (albeit she’s unavailable to play until the paper work is completed). Green’s mother is from NZ and she reckons she’s always had a soft spot for supporting kiwi sports teams. There ya go.
The yarn goes that Tom Sermanni tried to gauge her interest in a switch a couple years back but that was in the early days of the pandemic and there weren’t any national team fixtures to give it any momentum. But Jitka Klimková’s been able to seal the deal. Green herself admits that the preference was to play for the Matildas but having been consistently overlooked for those teams she’s decided to try the other path instead.
Probably gotta give agent Paige Satchell some credit here too. Green’s Sydney FC teammate giving her a nudge in the right direction. We’ve now got an extra New Zealand interest in the upcoming grand final.
Green is a left-back so we’re not talking about a game-changing addition here; the captain of the Ferns plays left-back after all. However Green, at 23 years old, is a fair bit younger than Ali Riley which helps with future progression. Ashleigh Ward had a nice debut at LB and has been around the squad under Klimková. Got several good fullback prospects in the A-League already in the likes of Marisa van der Meer, Zoe McMeeken, and Saskia Vosper. Love that depth.
By the way, it seems like Ally Green has her eyes set on Europe sooner rather than later. This quite is also just really funny considering we now know what she was talking about at the end there...
NZ Brokers
Honestly, you think the Breakers have run out of ways to surprise you and then you see this. For context they led comfortably for most of the first three quarters of this game, got taken to overtime, but were seven points up with 24 seconds remaining after the always impressive Yanni Wetzell buried a couple free throws. Seven points up with 24 seconds remaining and they lost.
First Brizzy hit a triple, Robert Franks with the shot after he rebounded Jason Cadee’s miss. 14 second remaining. Peyton Siva is fouled. He splits his free throws so now the Breakers lead by five points with 11 seconds to go. Tanner Krebs makes a three for the Bullets. Five seconds remaining. Up by two.
Will McDowell-White has the inbounds pass under his own hoop and Brisbane double-team Siva to keep him away. Ousmane Dieng was also closely guarded. But that still left someone wide open. All they had to do was pick someone out and Brisbane would have to foul. Make the free throws and it’s game over.
Instead WMW decides he must be Steven Adams in disguise and hurls one two thirds of the way down the court to where Yanni Wetzell was playing wide receiver. Dindn’t work. Deng Deng intercepted it and chucked the ball to Anthony Drmic who nailed an incredible shot for the win. Like, as much as the Breakers royally cocked that one up that was still an unreal shot to take the W. Most games that rims out and the Breakers get away with it. But then the Breakers don’t have a very positive karma balance at the moment after all the dumb things that have been done under this ownership to dismantle what was once a dynastic franchise.
As I say, it’s hard for the Breakers to find new was to shock and then you see a ridiculous play like that. Throwing away another game in a fresh and creative manner. I mean... LOOK HOW OPEN TOM ABERCROMBIE WAS!!!
