Golden Boots
Marko Stamenic UCL debut, Aotearoa Kiwis wider squad, Blackcaps spinners, Women's National Legaue footy & more
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Reading Menu
Kiwi-NRL Finals Round Rua Preview (Rugby League)
All Whites vs Australia: Squad Yarns (Football)
The Football Ferns Beat Mexico Then The Football Ferns Beat The Philippines, Right On (Football)
Recapping The 2022 Kate Sheppard Cup & Chatham Cup Grand Finals (Football)
Flying Kiwis – September 14 (Football)
How Blackcaps Softness Became A Trend (Cricket)
A History Of Kiwi Footballers In The UEFA Champions League (Football)
Scotty’s Word
Aotearoa Kiwis named a wider squad for the upcoming World Cup, featuring 34 players and plenty of funky notes. There is still a perception that NZ Warriors represent Aotearoa rugby league and this was evident as local media zoned in on Shaun Johnson. No Warriors played in the last Test for Aotearoa (win over Tonga) and Dallin Watene-Zelezniak was the only Warrior in that squad, now there are two Warriors in the wider squad.
This is a wider squad of 34 lads that will probably be trimmed down to 25 players. That means roughly 10 players will be cut and Johnson may be one of them as Jahrome Hughes, Dylan Brown and Kieran Foran are all better than Johnson right now.
The trio of Raiders backs is another interesting pocket. Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad played centre for Kiwis late in 2019, while Matthew Timoko is having a fabulous season at centre and came up through NZRL representative pipelines while playing 1st 15 for Auckland Grammar School. Sebastian Kris was born and raised in Australia with Maori heritage and apparently he wants to represent Aotearoa.
Timoko and Kris will start at centre for Raiders in their finals game against Eels. Nicoll-Klokstad started the season at fullback for Raiders but lost his spot to Xavier Savage and Raiders blasted themselves into finals with Savage at fullback. This means that Nicoll-Klokstad is behind Savage at fullback and Timoko/Kris at centre for Raiders.
Nicoll-Klokstad could be a back up fullback for Kiwis, while I've got Peta Hiku and Timoko ahead of him as centres. Kiwis coach Michael Maguire specifically selected Nicoll-Klokstad to play centre in 2019 and then followed this up by selecting Eels forward Marata Niukore at centre against Tonga earlier this year. Niukore is fantastic in every position and given how stacked the forward pack is, rolling with Niukore as a centre is fine - also bumps Nicoll-Klokstad further down the pecking order.
Based on the last Kiwis squad and favouring finals footy, this group could drop out for the final World Cup squad…
Shaun Johnson, Sebastian Kris, Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, Isaac Liu, Kodi Nikorima, Bailey Simonsson, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, Jordan Riki.
This is my favourite Aotearoa Kiwis line up...
Fullback: Joseph Manu (Tokoroa)
Wingers: Ronaldo Mulitalo (Auckland), Jordan Rapana (Wellington)
Centres: Peta Hiku (Auckland), Matthew Timoko (Auckland)
Halves: Jahrome Hughes (Wellington), Dylan Brown (Northland)
Middles: James Fisher-Harris (Northland), Joseph Tapine (Wellington), Jesse Bromwich (Auckland)
Edges: Isaiah Papali'i (Auckland), Kenny Bromwich (Auckland)
Hooker: Brandon Smith (Waiheke Island)
Bench: Nelson Asofa-Solomona (Wellington), Moses Leota (Auckland), Jared Waerea-Hargreaves (Rotorua), Marata Niukore (Auckland)
Remember that Aotearoa Kiwis aren't just playing footy, they are trying to build a system that players want to be a part of. Aotearoa Kiwis hit a stink low at the 2017 World Cup and under coach Maguire there is a distinct flavour of mana, turangawaewae and bringing together different cultures under the Aotearoa Kiwis umbrella.
Finals footy in Queensland and New South Wales continues...
Kiwi-NRL players in Queensland U21 finals...
Wynnum: Caius Fa'atili, Sefa Roache-Faimalo, Felix Fa'atili.
Redcliffe: Ali Leiataua, Kina Kepu, Taniela Otukolo, Lleyton Finau, Jacob Laban, Demitric Sifakula, Valingi Kepu, Zyon Maiu'u.
Kiwi-NRL players in Queensland Cup finals...
Norths: Tony Tumusa, Leivaha Pulu, Michael Sio, Moses Noovao-McGreal.
Sunshine Coast: William Warbrick.
Redcliffe: Setu Tu, Pride Petterson-Robati, Valynce Te Whare, Sheldon Pitama.
Burleigh: Esan Marsters, Nathaniel Peteru, Kea Pere, Vaka Sikahele.
Kiwi-NRL players in NSW U21 finals...
Roosters: Connagh Takairangi.
Panthers: William Fakatoumafi, Daeon Amituanai, Ilai Tuia.
Kiwi-NRL players in NSW Cup finals...
Newtown: Mawene Hiroti, Kayal Iro, Jenson Taumoepeau, Charbel Tasipale.
Bulldogs: Phillip Makatoa.
There was also an announcement of Auckland Blues U18 Development squad this week. Xavier Tito-Harris was named and there seems to be a lot more union buzz for Tito-Harris than league, despite him featuring in Future Warriors squads for a few years while playing 1st 15 for Kelston Boys High School.
Warriors juniors Sio Kali (St Paul's College) and Salumiela Halasima (Southern Cross) were also selected. Warriors junior and Kings College 1st 15 veteran Francis Manuleleua was not selected, despite being one of the best union backs in Aotearoa.
Aotearoa’s youngsters play both codes, cracking representative squads in both codes. For example, Kali was also named in the National Secondary Schools Tournament Team (league) a few weeks ago. Rotorua Boys High School's Marakai Aumua, Waisake Salabiau and Sione Tupou were also named in that NSSTT and were recently named in Chiefs U18 Development squad. Oliver Lawry from St Thomas of Canterbury College was named in the NSSTT as well as Crusaders' U18 squad.
This is Aotearoa footy abundance and these notes are just obvious bits, so there is plenty of crossover between the codes to celebrate.
As noted in the Kiwi-NRL junior round up above, there is a hefty group of Warriors juniors in Redcliffe U21s for their finals game vs Central Coast. If Redcliffe win they will go through to the final and while it's impressive for Warriors juniors (some are U19s) to lead Redcliffe U21s to semi-finals, taking them to the final or winning the competition would be epic.
Hopefully all the Warriors juniors end up playing. If so, Warriors will have seven forwards in that team and Leiataua at centre. All of which reflects fairly nicely on Warriors junior development.
Neil Wagner doesn't play much cricket, making him an interesting geezer to ponder. Despite only dabbling in Plunket Shield last summer Wagner took 15w @ 27.86avg across the Test summer, then he enjoyed 20 overs in his lone appearance of the England tour.
2019 Tests: 43w @ 17.81avg.
2020 Tests: 18w @ 24.22avg.
2021 Tests: 10w @ 28avg.
2022 Tests: 17w @ 30.94avg.
2021/22 Plunket Shield: 57.5ov, 4w @ 39avg.
(Didn't play Ford Trophy, Super Smash last summer)
I'm also curious about Blackcaps spinners. Below are the spinners used for each Test over the past year and it’s weird…
India First Test: Rachin Ravindra, Will Somerville, Ajaz Patel.
India Second Test: Rachin Ravindra, Will Somerville, Ajaz Patel.
Bangladesh First Test: Rachin Ravindra.
Bangladesh Second Test: Luteru Taylor.
South Africa First Test: -
South Africa Second Test: -
England First Test: Ajaz Patel.
England Second Test: Michael Bracewell.
England Third Test: Michael Bracewell.
Here are the Test records of these spinners (excluding Taylor)...
Rachin Ravindra: 3w @ 62.66avg.
Michael Bracewell: 5w @ 57avg.
Will Somerville: 15w @ 48.26avg.
Ajaz Patel: 43w @ 27.65avg.
Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi have also played Test cricket, with better records than Ravindra, Somerville and Bracewell...
Mitchell Santner: 41w @ 45.63avg.
Ish Sodhi: 41w @ 48.58avg.
Santner and Sodhi are certified T20 weapons, less so in ODIs but similar records…
Mitchel Santner: 86w @ 36.16avg.
Ish Sodhi: 48w @ 34.70avg.
Working through all of that leaves me pondering how simple it could be as Patel, Santner and Sodhi are clearly the best spinners in Aotearoa. Instead it’s a mess and perhaps that mess is an undercover factor in Test losses.
Wildcard’s Notebook
Yesterday was a long time in coming, as for the first time in 15 years a kiwi male played in the UEFA Champions League. None of those qualifying yarns, we’re talking about the competition proper. Group stage onwards.
The hope was that maybe Marko Stamenic would pop up off the bench for a late cameo as FC København hosted Sevilla but nope instead he was named to start and played the full ninety minutes. Incredible. Even meant he got to walk about for the iconic Champions League anthem and everything.
NZ MEN TO HAVE PLAYED CHAMPIONS LEAGUE:
Kim Wright (Floriana) – 2 games in 1993-94
Wynton Rufer (Werder Bremen) – 10 games, 8 goals in 1993-94
Danny Hay (Leeds) – 1 game in 2000-01
Chris Killen (Celtic) – 5 games in 2007-08
Marko Stamenic (FC København) – 1 game in 2022-23
The most famous of those is clearly Wynton Rufer. Not only did his Werder Bremen team go on a wild run all the way to the third-round group stage (as was the format back then), involved in some absolute classic matches, but his eight goals meant he was tied for the Golden Boot at the end of the tournament. Tied with some bloke called Ronald Koeman from some club called Barcelona. That was the company that Peak Wynton kept. Seriously, that guy was so far ahead of his time as a kiwi footballer. That’s an achievement that will probably never be matched.
But while Rufer is often considered the first New Zealander to play in the European Cup/Champions League, that’s not technically the case. Because in the first round of that same 1993-94 season, Kim Wright happened to feature for Maltese club Floriana. And by the luck of the draw, Floriana’s first game was the day before Werder’s first game. Floriana lost 2-0 over two legs to FC Porto. Wright played all 180 mins. Meanwhile Rufer scored three goals in a 6-3 aggregate win over Dinamo Minsk and never let up. In fact he also played Porto later on in that group stage, scoring in the away fixture. Got a goal against Levski Sofia in the second round. Bagged a couple against Anderlecht. Also scored in a 1-1 draw vs AC Milan. Damn, bro.
It was another five and a half years before Danny Hay’s famous stoppage time cameo for Leeds in a 4-0 defeat at the Nou Camp in Spain. As far as last-gasp substitutions go, that was a pretty meaningful one. Then a further six years later it was Chris Killen’s turn with Celtic. He played in five of their six group stage games, starting one of them. 137 minutes all combined. Played against Shaktar Donesk, AC Milan, and Benfica. Now finally Marko Stamenic has joined them to make it a quintet.
Speaking of Wynton Rufer, here’s a pic of him having a peek at a mural of him on the streets of Bremen earlier this month. From this vid, which is entirely in German but you may be able to sprechen sie Deutch better than I can…
Meanwhile here’s what I’ve got about Marko Stamenic’s actual performance against Sevilla for next week’s Flying Kiwis write-up (because nobody wants to wait that long)...
Stamenic was one of two changes from the Dortmund game a week ago, coming into the midfield alongside Rasmus Falk and in front of captain Zeca in a midfield three. Bit of extra defensive coverage in what was probably their best chance for a positive result in such a tough group. Smacked 3-0 by Dortmund last week, got Manchester City next... Sevilla at home was the least difficult of six very difficult fixtures. Hey, it’s the Champions League after all. It’s supposed to be brutal.
Sevilla got on top early and that meant a lot of Stam’s game was spent tracking and shielding off the ball. FCK survived a couple close calls at the back. However as the half went on we did see that Stamenic had the freedom to push forward in the right moments, running onto a couple balls over the top albeit to no avail. Then towards the end of the first half he started popping up in the area as crosses were swung in – using his height to good advantage. Although the best of those crosses was taken off his head and put off target by teammate Viktor Claesson.
Marko Stamenic also blocked an Alex Telles shot in the penalty area which led to an appeal for handball but his back was turned and his arms were tucked so the right decision was made to play on. No harm no foul... granted Stammers did concede quite a few actual fouls too. It was very much in the FCK strategy to break up the play whenever they could against their silky Spanish opponents.
There was a foul he gave away on the edge of the area in the second half which could have been trouble. It was more that the Sevilla dude, Joan Jordán, reached back in his shooting motion and tripped rather than Stamenic lunging in. Regardless it was a relief to see the ball cannon into the defensive wall (might have even been Stamenic himself who blocked it). Jordán was booked for diving a few mins later although that earlier one was definitely a foul.
The inevitable yellow card didn’t arrive until the 84th minute of the match. Stamenic’s sixth foul finally earning a caution from the referee. Would have been cool to see his passing accuracy a bit higher than 70% but a couple things were counting against him there: his team’s low possession stats and also, you know, the fact that he was on debut. Even still, we saw him dinking passes over markers and dummying to teammates. Not always successfully but to have the cojones to try those things on UCL debut counts for heaps.
FCK’s best attacking phases came late in that first half. The end of the second half was almost completely disrupted by constant whistles. Sevilla were the more proactive team but they couldn’t find a way through that Copenhagen backline. Stamenic’s CDM partner Zeca got man of the match as the game ended 0-0.
Stamenic played the entire thing – the first complete game he’s ever played for FC København, one hell of an occasion to tick that one off. A draw was a decent result in front of a touch under 35,000 fans in Copenhagen. Win would’ve been nicer but no dramas. Heaps to like about the way they defended.
Also heaps to like when looking at the official stats and seeing Marko Stamenic credited with a game-high six fouls. Remember it wasn’t until the last one that they finally booked him. Enforcer behaviour right there. He also completed at least one pass to every other outfield starter in his team and received at least one pass from every other starting outfielder. No other fella in his team can say they did both of those things.
And now we interrupt this broadcast to hear from the man himself...
The Women’s National League begins this weekend. As far as I can tell all the games will be streamed either on the NZF YouTube channel or the Sky Sport Next YouTube channel. Good news for the exposure of the league although tough news for me in having to try and watch them all each week (it’ll be fine until the men’s comp starts and there’s suddenly nine games each weekend – I’ll try be as quick as possible with all the write-ups but there are only so many hours in the day so Flying Kiwis could start popping up on Wednesdays more often – please support us on Patreon if you appreciate all the effort, lol).
I wrote a preview of the WNL on Wednesday but since then Central have confirmed their full squad so allow me to offer a few more words on their behalf...
It does look like a slightly older team than has been the case the last two years for Central. In part because there are a lot of returning players who’ll have benefited from early exposure to this level in recent years. Rebekah Trewhitt and Lara Smith started every game in the backline for this team in 2021’s South Central Series. Stella Warner played some part in all but one. Chuck assistant coach turned player again Kate Bennett in and there’s a useful back four already.
Sophie Campbell is only 15 years old but she did start two games in goal last year. Kate Mori is back in midfield. The likes of Holly Kleinsmann, Maddi Hughes, Georgie Furnell, and Ashley Arquette should give them some threat up front as well. This’ll be an interesting team to get a look at. It couldn’t be harder for them with a trip to face Canterbury on Saturday afternoon but that will at least help set a benchmark for this young and homegrown Central crew.
WNL Fixtures For This Weekend:
Capital vs Eastern Suburbs - Saturday at 3pm - Petone Memorial Park
Canterbury United vs Central - Saturday at 4pm - English Park
Western Springs vs Southern United - Sunday at 1pm - Seddon Fields
Auckland United vs Northern Rovers - Sunday at 3pm - Keith Hay Park