Goalhawking
Goalhawking
Kiwis rugby league is popping off, Blackcaps at the World Cup, a wonderful Wellington Phoenix weekend, All Whites squad, NZers in WNBL & ALW, plus more
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How Aotearoa Kiwi Ferns Defeated Australia And Continue The Resurgence Of Wahine Rugby League (Rugby League)
Aotearoa Warriors Diary: Learning From The Addin Fonua-Blake Situation (Rugby League)
Aotearoa Kiwis Defeat Australia: The Black and White Toa From Aotearoa (Rugby League)
Kiwi-NRL Spotlight: Aotearoa A vs Tonga A Breakdown (Rugby League)
All Whites vs Australia: The Soccer Ashes Remain Elusive (Football)
Previewing the Wellington Phoenix Women's 2023-24 Season (Football)
The Wellington Phoenix Blokes Appear To Have An Academy Player Resurgence On Their Hands (Football)
The 2023 Wellington Phoenix Offseason Preview - Part 1: The Women (Football)
The 2023 Wellington Phoenix Offseason Preview - Part 2: The Men (Football)
Scotty’s Word
How good is it to win against Australia? Kiwis and Kiwi Ferns both have wins over the Aussies, all of which has been covered on theniche-cache.com. The only thing to add to those yarns is how winning teams draw in big crowds and this is amplified when these teams haven't played much footy in Aotearoa over the past decade. Kiwis have had sporadic wins against Australia but as we see across every sport in Aotearoa, fans rally behind winning teams and teams who have invested in connecting to their community.
Did big crowds turn up to watch losing NZ Warriors teams? Aotearoa rugby league teams are earning the faith of their fans because they are winning more games. When fans see the pride of the players and hard mahi is evident in their performance, sports folk in Aotearoa will show up. Kiwis haven't always ticked those boxes. Whether it's rare appearances in Aotearoa or having a Kiwis team full of players with fragile ties to Aotearoa; Kiwis haven't earned the fandom of Aotearoa's rugby league community.
That is changing. The tide has already turned but it's early in the process. Kiwis have won their last two games against Australia in Aotearoa and after beating Samoa 50-0, Kiwis finished the Pacific Championship with an 80-0 points tally across their two home games. A key factor in this is that most of the team who defeated Australia are Kiwi-NRL juniors, who grew up in Aotearoa and played junior rugby league in Aotearoa.
This applies to women's rugby league as well, with the new wave of NRLWahine coming from communities around Aotearoa. Two of the best young forwards in Aotearoa rugby league are Leo Thompson and Amelia Pasikala who are both from Hawke's Bay for example. Emerging rugby league talent is coming from every region in Aotearoa and as is steadily documented through The Niche Cache, this is only increasing. Forget all the issues with Australia's control over international rugby league and any other headlines, the talent coming out of Aotearoa drives optimism for the future of Aotearoa Kiwis and Kiwi Ferns.
Here is a wee example, highlighting the junior halves from Aotearoa who I'm tracking ahead of next season. Remember that 17-year-old Ryder Williams already has a development contract with Titans and the Kiwi-NRL Juniors Who Helped Australian Teams Win yarn had another Marist junior Cassius Tia shining in the Roosters system.
Mal Meninga Cup U19
Burleigh: Armani Wetini-Ngaropo (Manurewa)
Norths: Eli Bijl-Kakoi (Linwood)
Tweed Heads: Mason Barber (Hokianga)
NSW SG Ball U19
Bulldogs: Bronson Reuben (Northern Bulldogs)
Knights: Haami Loza (Otara/Mangere East - no SGB squad yet but he was halfback for Knights U17s this year)
NZ Warriors haven't named their Harold Matthews Cup (U17) or SGB squads yet, but an NZW U17 team played against Pasifika Aotearoa Collective U18s earlier this year with Maui Winitana-Patelesio (Hutt Old Boys) and Noah Jensen (Westlake Boys) in the halves. Winitana-Patelesio has played in NZRL representative teams for the last two years, most recently the NZRL Resident Clubs team after playing three years of 1st 15 for St Pat's Silverstream. That's an example of the talent coming from Wellington, while Jensen is part of a WBHS wave also featuring forwards Elijah Rasmussen (Redcliffe) and Hokianga's Jayden Harris (Knights).
Another note: Taniela Otukolo (Otahuhu) has moved from Redcliffe to Western Clydesdales. Otukolo played NRL for NZ Warriors and then spent all of this season in Redcliffe U21s, having played for Redcliffe during the Warriors-Redcliffe era. Clydesdales are linked to Bulldogs but Otukolo has gone backwards and if he couldn't secure a Queensland Cup gig with Redcliffe, it's unlikely he will get a crack with Bulldogs.
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Opposition totals against Blackcaps bowlers in recent World Cup games...
India: 274/6 batting second (5.7rpo)
Australia: 388 batting first (7.86rpo)
South Africa: 357/4 batting first (7.14rpo)
Pakistan: 200/1 batting second (7.84rpo)
Blackcaps bowlers economy rates (10+ overs)...
Mitchell Santner: 5.17rpo
Trent Boult: 5.36rpo
Lockie Ferguson: 5.58rpo
Matt Henry: 5.79rpo
Glenn Phillips: 5.79rpo
Rachin Ravindra: 6.11rpo
Tim Southee: 6.93rpo
Jimmy Neesham: 10.82rpo
Kyle Jamieson is now with Blackcaps in India and who knows how Jamieson will perform if/when he gets a crack. Jamieson has not played ODIs or T20Is in India, taking 6w @ 30avg/3rpo across two Tests in India. Jamieson's ODI/T20I mahi doesn't offer any clarity either...
2023 T20Is: 21.8avg/8.3po
2023 ODIs: 71.6avg/6.7rpo
Everything is crystal clear for Kane Williamson's batting mahi though...
Williamson scores in last 10 games: 43, 6, 0, 4, 132, 1, 121*, 215, 78*, 95
Williamson's last five games...
Test vs England: 4, 132
Tests vs Sri Lanka: 1, 121*, 215
World Cup: 78*, 95
Williamson averages 65.76 in World Cups with ODI average of 48.74. Test average of 54.89. The kids goes alright.
Amelia Kerr is back in WBBL! Kerr scored 59 runs @ 137sr and took 2w @ 4rpo in another win for Heat who are 5-1 with a game against Thunder tonight (Monday). Kerr has played 47 WBBL games and this was her first 50+ score, averaging 21.4 with the bat in WBBL. Kerr has a T20 career average of 28.5 and she is likely to increase both considering her status as the White Ferns' best batter. Kerr also has a T20 bowling average of 17.2 and a WBBL average of 19.4.
Sophie Devine's Scorchers are 4-3. Devine is trucking along with 239 runs @ 39avg/143sr and 7w @ 24avg/7.5rpo. Sixers are 2-5 thanks to a win on Sunday, although Jess Kerr (4w @ 40avg/8.1rpo) didn't play and Suzie Bates (50 runs @ 8avg/64sr) was bumped down the order to sixth where she wasn't required to bat.
Plunket Shield round three starts today. Will O'Rourke is named for Canterbury and is playing his first game of the season. The other major inclusion is Bharat Popli for Northern District, taking Sandeep Patel's spot after he scored a century in round one.
Musical jam…
Wildcard’s Notebook
Slight hiccup with the ol’ email today... for some reason the Auckland United vs Wellington Phoenix MNL game hasn’t popped up as a replay on FIFA+ yet so I can’t really do the team of the week. Still got two other women’s games to watch so can’t flip that one around either. Just gonna have to do doubles in the Friday email and hopefully that missing game will at least have highlights, if not the full thing, in time for the written roundup. There were seven goals in that match and I’d very much like to see them.
You might’ve also noticed I didn’t get a Flying Kiwis finished last week either. That was down to the National League attention-hole but also, you know, it just wasn’t a good week. Chris Wood got injured and the women were on an international break and the only goal worth mentioning was Marko Stamenic’s Champions League effort which I’d already written about in an email... but I did get a chunk of it done so that’ll be flipped into this week’s double-issue if all things go to plan. There’s only a fortnight of full National League gameweeks remaining and after that I’ll have more time to churn out the rest of these yarns. Including more Wellington Phoenix.
It wasn’t looking good for either Wellington Phoenix team after the first minute of their respective games against the Brisbane Roar. The women lost Grace Wisnewski to what potentially looks like a very serious knee injury. Fingers crossed – Keira Walsh seemed to suffer an ACL tear at the World Cup then was back playing for England a couple games later so it’s not always as bad as it first appears. As for the blokes, they conceded a goal after a mere 34 seconds.
Fast forward ninety minutes and both had claimed fabulous victories. The women won 2-1 with Mariana Speckmaier and Annalie Longo getting the goals, Longo with a beauty of a strike after being subbed on for her debut. Brianna Edwards was excellent getting the start in goal for the injured Rylee Foster. Defensively the whole team shone through, in a rare instance where the Nix have had more shots and possession than their opponents. This also means consecutive wins for the first time in the team’s history... and the best part is that they weren’t even that flash overall. They ground out this win without playing much of that slick passing stuff they’ve been teasing. Macey Fraser was quieter. There weren’t many set pieces to attack, only one corner (plus the free kick they scored the first goal from). But they won.
In the past two seasons the SheNix have had to play close to their capacity in order to win games and they’ve struggled to find much consistency after doing so. Here they left plenty on the table but still bagged a second win in a row. This team is ready for its close-up. Let’s get those crowds flocking from here on out.
Not only to the women’s games but also to the men’s because that lot aren’t too shabby either. A 5-2 win over Brisbane means they’ve won consecutive matches following that 0-0 draw to start things off and believe it or not 7 points from three games is the club’s best ever haul at this early stage of a season. Also do you know when the last time the Welly Nix scored five goals in an A-League game was? 9 March 2019. 8-2 against Central Coast Mariners. They’ve conceded five times on four occasions since... and this is during a relatively strong period in the club’s history.
The SheNix made it clear from day one that they intend to be a winning team this season. No more moral consolations with a developmental team. Four imports in town. A strong core of continuing players. Their emergence has been thrilling... but it was forecasted. The HeNix seemed to be taking a step backwards with only two new signings from outside the squad despite a number of departures, the gaps being filled by its own academy, and yet they’ve been just as good. Genuinely incredible stuff.
It doesn’t entirely make sense how they’ve done it but one thing you absolutely cannot doubt is that it wouldn’t have been possible without some top notch coaching. You can say that for both teams. Paul Temple and Giancarlo Italiano are brilliant leaders both in and out of their technical areas and we’re fortunate to have them around. Check this out…
Across the wider Women’s A-League we finally got that Milly Clegg debut for Western Sydney Wanderers. Everyone had to be patient over the first two weeks until she turned 18 and was finally allowed to play for a foreign professional team under FIFA rules. As soon as that happened she was straight into the starting line-up against the Newcastle Jets.
Call it a tentative debut though. She had three shots on target but none particularly threatened the keeper. Lots of running down channels but not a lot of space to work with, operating in a front two but without much support from the wide players or midfield. The workrate was good but she did regularly get dragged away from the penalty area in search of the ball.
Then after 55 minutes she had to be subbed off after colliding with the goalie when trying to run in behind. Looked like it was probably just a contact injury, maybe a deep bruise or something, so wouldn’t think she’ll miss much/any time... but yeah this will be one of her lesser ALW performances, you’ve gotta think. Good to see what we already suspected though: that Milly Clegg shapes to be a key player for this Western Sydney team.
Elsewhere Liz Anton returned from injury to make her season debut for Perth Glory as a half-time substitute. Glad to see it. Grace Jale scored again for Perth in that match, her second of the season and another mean finish. Hannah Wilkinson was also got on the scoresheet for Melbourne City with some prime striker’s goalhawking (I do reckon she needed to make sure of that one with the defender lurking).
With Clegg and Anton’s debuts, we’ve now reached the full allotment of nine kiwis at Aussie clubs all having gotten minutes. The Phoenix have also used 14 (with five more in their senior squad yet to feature). That’s what we want to see.
Rebekah Stott (Melbourne City) – 3 games | 3 starts | 270 mins | 1 assist
Grace Jale (Perth) – 3 games | 3 starts | 270 mins | 2 goals
Hannah Wilkinson (Melbourne City) – 3 games | 3 starts | 270 mins | 2 goals
Hannah Blake (Adelaide) – 3 games | 3 starts | 269 mins | 1 goal & 1 assist
Rosetta Taylor (Adelaide) – 3 games | 3 starts | 188 mins
Ruby Nathan (Canberra) – 3 games | 1 start | 126 mins
Milly Clegg (Western Sydney) – 1 game | 1 start | 55 mins
Liz Anton (Perth) – 1 game | 0 starts | 45 mins
Deven Jackson (Canberra) – 3 games | 0 starts | 40 mins
There are 27 men who have scored at least 1000 runs in ODI World Cups.
This is how those 27 players shape up if you arrange them by averages...
Most Centuries For Blackcaps In ODI World Cups
Rachin Ravindra – 3
Nathan Astle, Stephen Fleming, Martin Guptill, Scott Styris, Glenn Turner & Kane Williamson - 2
Ravindra is also now the tenth highest run scorer for New Zealand in Men’s ODI World Cups, his 523 runs knocking Craig McMillan down to eleventh and he’s done that in literally one third of the total innings. By the way Daryl Mitchell’s scored 375 @ 62.50 this WC as well.
Another one to watch for against Sri Lanka on Thursday night (and hopefully in a forthcoming semi-final as well) is that Trent Boult is one wicket away from becoming only the sixth bloke to take 50 ODI World Cup wickets. He’s got 49 at an average of 25.12 across his three tournaments. Glenn McGrath leads the way with 71. Then we’ve got Muttiah Muralitharan (68), Mitchell Starc (58), Lasith Malinga (56), and Wasim Akram (55). Gotta be careful though because Mohammed Shami is on 47 wickets and could beat him to it.
An All Whites squad has been named for the upcoming games against Greece and Ireland and you’ll be unsurprised to see that they’re picking injured players again. New Zealand Football doing their usual. Chris Wood is in the squad having missed the last two Nottingham Forest games with a hamstring injury that his coach reckons he won’t return from until after the international break. Maybe that quote was referring to him not playing for Forest specifically but it’s still hard to imagine a Premier League club being comfortable with that happening, especially one with limited striker stocks. Likewise Sarpreet Singh has been included despite the hamstring twinge that he suffered on the last All Whites tour – an injury he has yet to recover from. Admittedly those are the two guys you’d most want to take a risk on if you had to.
James McGarry remains injured, although he must be close to an Aberdeen return, while Matt Dibley-Dias has had surgery since the last window so he might not return for Fulham U21s until closer to the new year. It’s mostly a clean bill of health elsewhere though. Ryan Thomas hasn’t been risked in the wake of his first start of the season for PEC Zwolle but that’s to be expected. Happily, Joe Bell is back. As are the A-League players, granted only four of them have been summoned. Baze mentions his pleasure at having six blokes eligible for the Olympics next year but those six are guys who’d have been here anyway.
Ins: Alex Paulsen, Finn Surman, Tim Payne, Clayton Lewis, Joe Bell
Outs: Nik Tzanev, Bill Tuiloma, Niko Kirwan, Matt Dibley-Dias
Odd that both the two right backs who started last time have been left out... though Tuiloma didn’t play for his club since getting injured mid-year (he was only ever an unused down the stretch of MLS) while Kirwan has also recently lost his starting spot at Padova – although he scored a goal this week so maybe that’s gonna change. Tim Payne’s had a couple of superb RB performances for the Welly Nix and Tyler Bindon is also capable and playing regularly at Reading... and that’s an encouraging precedent to be setting: form takes priority over reputation, and you’ve got to be playing at club level to demand selection. Good from Baze, who also applies the same rule to the Paulsen/Tzanev swap.
Paulsen and Surman are the two uncapped players in the squad... expect to see a Surman debut at the very least and don’t be shocked if Paulsen gets one as well. Having said that, Burton Albion don’t have a game during this window so the Max Crocombe push and pull shouldn’t be an issue.
Kiwis in the WNBL, Round One Box Scores…
Penina Davidson - Melbourne Boomers (W 68-60 vs ADL)
17:18 MIN | 12 PTS (5/10 FG) | 10 REB (6 OFF) | 2 STL | 2 TO | 5 PF
Tera Reed - Melbourne Boomers (W 68-60 vs ADL)
32:23 MIN | 10 PTS (3/5 FG, 2/3 3PT) | 10 REB (2 OFF) | 2 AST | 2 STL | 1 BLK | 4 TO | 3 PF
Esra McGoldrick – Bendigo Spirit (L 93-80 vs TSV)
11:25 MIN | 2 PTS (1/4 FG) | 5 REB (2 OFF) | 4 TO | 1 PF
Penina Davidson - Melbourne Boomers (W 77-70 vs STH)
14:47 MIN | 6 PTS (3/4 FG) | 5 REB (1 OFF) | 1 BLK | 2 TO | 2 PF
Tera Reed - Melbourne Boomers (W 77-70 vs STH)
28:25 MIN | 18 PTS (6/11 FG, 3/3 3PT) | 6 REB (2 OFF) | 1 STL | 1 BLK | 2 TO | 4 PF
Didn’t get a sighting of Ritorya Tamilo who is a development player alongside McGoldrick at Bendigo. Also further to Friday’s bit, the other kiwi under contract is Tahlia Tupaea with UC Capitals but sadly it’s been confirmed that she’ll miss the entire season after having surgery – presumably on the shoulder that had been troubling her at the Asia Cup as well as keeping her out of most of the Tauihi season. Tupaea’s had a nightmare time with injuries across her career and this will be the second consecutive WNBL season that she’s been forced to miss. But, on the positive front, Akiene-Tera Reed was absolutely fantastic in her first weekend of WNBL basketball. 5/6 from three-point range? Unreal.
New Mermaidens album out now, get amongst…