Hearts Captured
Warriors & NRLW buzz, Wellington Phoenix & Auckland FC moves, Tall Blacks & NZ U17s basketball, Blackcaps & White Ferns numbers, Charlisse Leger-Walker, and more
Scotty’s Word
Great start to the NRLW season for NZ Warriors with a win vs Bulldogs. This was their second win vs Bulldogs in NRLW with a combined score of 66-16 across those two games, split between Sydney and Hamilton. There is lots of nitty gritty footy stuff to ponder but I’m more interested in the opportunity for this group to impact the sporting landscape in Aotearoa.
This goes beyond women’s sport but I sense a wee opening for NZW. Kiwi sports fans are hungry for a women’s team or individual to support and capture their hearts, especially in this winter window. Melie Kerr as White Ferns captain is the only other pocket that comes to mind and White Ferns let that opportunity slip away with their recent T20 World Cup performance.
Charlisse Leger-Walker is top of the list as well but she’s off in a distant land and unless you’re following the kiwi basketball gurus (like my comrade), there isn’t much mainstream media attention given to her now that the WNBA season is flowing. The lack of any basketball buzz in mainstream media is kinda bonkers given how popular it is at the grassroots level, but that’s why we do what we love to do.
There are many other fabulous kiwi women doing world-class things around the world. What I’m describing feels more like Wellington’s connection to their dynastic Blaze team and that stems from how close the team is with their community. Black Ferns Sevens don’t play in New Zealand, while nothing at the Super Rugby Aupiki level or anything in netball comes close to the bandwagon potential of the NZW women.
Some of the Up The Wahs glow is involved for the women’s team. They have their own identity though and, at a time when some folks want to divide Aotearoa communities, NZW are led by Maori and Polynesian women (the whole squad is Maori or Polynesian). Their elite footy talents are matched by their understanding of their impact on communities around New Zealand, along with their enthusiasm and vibrant personalities.
Winning is crucial when cultivating such fandom and this group looks like they can play finals footy. NZW were missing top-tier talent against Bulldogs yet their spine was awesome, playing behind a forward pack that overwhelmed an opposition forward pack led by two Kiwi Ferns in Angelina Teakaraanga-Katoa and Alexis Tauaneai.
NZW men have showcased their culture by sustaining a high level while their depth has been challenged this season. Last season, NZW women kept battling through injuries and pregnancies, which was most evident when they almost won vs Raiders after two red cards. They showed the quality of their depth against Bulldogs to start this season with equal doses of gritty defensive mahi and razzle dazzle flair.
Two of the biggest personalities and most recognisable players weren’t even playing. Mele Hufanga and Stacey Waaka are superstars of women’s sport in Aotearoa, so just wait until they spark it up.
Flowing on from that, there is a growing list of players shifting their eligibility from Australia to Aotearoa in a World Cup year. Shannon Mato, Kennedy Cherrington and Zahara Temara have all made official moves to Kiwi Ferns after playing for Australia in recent years. At the same time there are more and more women moving from rugby union to bolster Kiwi Ferns depth as well as Tonga, Samoa and Cook Islands.
The growing halves depth offers a snapshot of this. Temara joins Gayle Broughton, Patricia Maliepo, Raecene McGregor, Tyla King and Ash Quinlan who have all played in the halves for Kiwi Ferns in the last few years. Cowboys were smoked by Broncos with Abigail Roache and Rosie Kelly in an all-Aotearoa halves combo, while youngster Shaqualya Mahakitau-Monschau was in the halves for Bulldogs.
Evelyn Roberts was part of the Bulldogs squad and she has dominated footy in Australia since leaving Auckland where she was a Mangere East junior. Limilaiti Paea is another Mangere East junior playing in the halves for Bulldogs in NSW Women’s Premiership, while Linwood’s Julliana Kolio has played halfback for Sharks in reserve grade and Dragons had their own all-Aotearoa halves combo in Women’s Premiership with Tyali Raihe (Taniwharau) and Danii Gray (Mangere East) playing a few games together.
There is also growing dummy half depth. Kiwi Ferns have had Brooke Anderson playing hooker and small forward in recent years, while Georgia Hale’s mainly played small forward and started at hooker for Titans in their loss vs Roosters. King and Quinlan have covered hooker and halves.
Cherrington has the hooker for Eels and Raiders hooker Chante Temara could follow her sister to Kiwi Ferns. NZW have Capri Paekau and Jasmin Huriwai as their dummy halves this season, both are aligned with Kiwi Ferns. Huriwai played rugby union for Australia but that won’t mean much now that she is back in Aotearoa.
Mary-Jane Taito started at hooker for Bulldogs and the Mangere East junior could add to Samoa’s depth, or Aotearoa’s. A deep cut is Charley Lahmert from New Plymouth who started this year in U19s for Knights and is now starting at hooker in Women’s Premiership.
John Fineanganofo made his NRL debut for Dolphins on the same weekend that his brother Fehi made his All Blacks debut. Along with older brother Melino, they all played 1st 15 for Auckland Grammar School and John was part of the Dolphins’ Aotearoa recruitment wave to help them establish a development pipeline as they entered NRL.
Left to right: Melino | Fehi | John
Fineanganofo joined Tevita Naufahu in the Dolphins team for their loss vs Knights and Naufahu was also recruited from 1st 15, having made the 2023 NZ Schools team via St Kentigern College. Dolphins have a wide mix of Kiwi-NRL from all possible backgrounds and while most Kiwi-NRL juniors played 1st 15 at some stage before moving into NRL pipelines, it’s notable that the early recruitment wave for Dolphins featured a bunch of players from 1st 15 rugby.
Next up in this lane are Patrick Kailahi (Hamilton Boys) and Elijah Rasmussen (Westlake Boys) who are both forwards.
For paid subscribers
NZ Warriors women stats
Dylan Brown the halfback and NZ Kiwis halves
Plenty more Blackcaps ODI stats
Emerging White Ferns batting oomph
Daryl Mitchell is Aotearoa’s best ODI batter at the moment and should be viewed as one of, if not the best kiwi ODI batter ever. Mitchell leads Blackcaps for ODI runs since the start of 2025. Here’s how he stacks up against other Blackcaps who have had at least 19 innings in this period...
Daryl Mitchell: 19inns, 1,113 runs @ 69.5avg/92sr
Will Young: 24inns, 500 runs @ 21.7avg/79sr
Michael Bracewell: 19inns, 412 runs @ 31.6avg/101sr
Tom Latham: 19inns, 398 runs @ 23.4avg/78sr
Mitchell has 2,690 runs @ 58.47avg/96sr. That’s the highest Blackcaps ODI batting average ever for 100+ runs and he is the only batter with 1,000+ runs/50+ average for New Zealand. Brendon McCullum (6,083 runs @ 30.41avg/96sr) is the only other Blackcaps ODI batter who has 2,000+ runs and a strike-rate over 90.
Mitchell has one of the craziest all format careers for New Zealand...
Test: 43.05avg/53sr
ODI: 58.47avg/96sr
T20I: 26.84avg/140sr
The NZC schedule isn’t super reliable because the tour of West Indies isn’t listed but apparently White Ferns are next in action for a tour of Australia. That starts with T20Is against the World Cup champions and White Ferns are 2-12 vs Australia since the start of 2020, including nine consecutive losses.
Melie Kerr has been awesome in T20Is against Australia, while some legends have struggled. Only a few White Ferns have averaged 20+ with the bat against Australia or averaged below 30 with the ball so the baseline for solid mahi in this zone is pretty low.
Best White Ferns vs Australia in T20Is - Batting
Melie Kerr: 390 runs @ 32.5avg/106sr
Maddy Green: 217 runs @ 19.7avg/123sr
Suzie Bates: 197 runs @ 16.4avg/5sr
Sophie Devine: 189 runs @ 17.1avg/88sr
Bowling
Melie Kerr: 18w @ 21avg/7.1rpo
Lea Tahuhu: 14w @ 18.3avg/7.7rpo
Sophie Devine: 7w @ 30avg/8.2rpo
Musical jam...
Nick’s Notebook
Won’t talk much about the Tall Blacks here because they play again at 7pm tonight. Make sure you check out the highlights of their 2OT win against the Philippines on Friday night though, because it was an insane spectacle. The Filipinos turned up in huge numbers to once again turn Spark Arena into what felt like an away venue and the game lived up to the hype with all sorts of late drama. Not a particularly impressive outing from the Tall Blacks on the whole but it’s only early stage World Cup qualifying so don’t worry about that. Many in the squad are out of season and the Philippines have evolved into a really tough team to play against. Just gotta dig in and get a win for the nation and that’s what they did.
Reuben Te Rangi with 22 points, Shea Ili with 21 points & 6 assists, Sam Waardenburg with 16 points & 10 rebounds. Lots of minutes spread around in a double overtime game - ten different dudes got at least 10 mins and only Keanu Rasmussen wasn’t used of the 12-man squad. That win guaranteed progression to the next round although we would have gone through even with a loss since Australia predictably beat Guam by 72 points. We face Guam tonight with absolutely nothing riding on it but it’s always cool to turn up for the home fans. That one’s at North Shore Events Centre.
But I will talk more about New Zealand finishing in 12th place (out of 16) at the FIBA U17 World Cup. Couldn’t match the top four effort of the last cycle but even at the time we could tell that was a special group. This lot probably should have bagged an extra win or two along the way except they let themselves down with some poor fourth quarters. That often comes with the territory at youth level. What matters is that we saw that familiar kiwi basketball pride and grittiness shining throughout… as this tour helped unearth one spectacular kiwi prospect along with a couple more very good ones.
Last we checked in, they’d just lost to Serbia in the first knockout round – that’s the same Serbia team that went all the way to the final where they were beaten 107-81 by the USA (while Australia won 77-69 against Türkiye in the bronze medal game). The NZers therefore dropped into the classification rounds where we were drawn against Japan first up and claimed an excellent victory on the back of some inspired Jayden Cecil three-point shooting.
Cecil had 22 points in the first half as the Junior Tall Blacks established a decent lead and then a few of his pals came to the party in the second half on the way to a 104-83 victory. Japan had shooters too but they didn’t have the size or strength of the NZers, who won the rebounding battle 63 to 33 (the inverse of how NZ had struggled against the rangy Serbians). The kiwis never trailed from midway through the first quarter onwards. Cecil ended with 31 points (including 7/16 from threes), 11 rebounds & 6 assists to lead NZ in all three of those major stat lines. Marco Sula (17 pts), Lawson Pryor (13 pts, 4/4 threes), Liam Keogh (14 pts), and Noah Duncan (12 pts) each scored in the double digits as well.
Sweet as, that put New Zealand into the bracket for the top half of the bottom half: competing for spots 9-12. China were the next opponents and a bright start, inspired by Cecil again of course, had New Zealand leading by 11 points late in the first and by similar fluctuating margins throughout the first half. It was 47-35 at the big break. Then some ominous shades of the first two games returned as New Zealand faded in the second half. Final score 92-79 to China - we got blown out 57-32 in the second half. The Junior Tall Blacks were +16 on the boards yet their erratic shooting and too many turnovers became insurmountable in the end. Still, Jayden Cecil scored 25 points (5/14 from deep, 9/24 overall) while Liam Koegh chipped in with 14 points.
The consequence of which was a final playoff game against Ivory Coast to see whether we’d end as the 11th or 12th ranked team. And... well, we lost that one too. Squeezed ahead in a close game during the third only for another shocker of a fourth quarter, outscored 30-17 in the final ten minutes to lose 85-81. Would blame it on tiredness except that they were doing this the whole way through the tournament...
NZ Fourth Quarters at the U17 World Cup
Türkiye: 20-37 (Lost in 2OT)
Puerto Rico: 14-31 (Lost by 8 pts)
Slovenia: 18-22 (Won by 5 pts)
Serbia: 31-28 (Lost by 30 pts)
Japan: 24-16 (Won by 21 pts)
China: 15-31 (Lost by 13 pts)
Ivory Coast: 17-30 (Lost by 4 pts)
If those games had ended after three quarters, NZ would have gone 6-1. Instead they were 2-5. Oh well, so it goes, it’s a youth tournament so it’s not like these guys had a whole season to prepare their clutch plays and hone their combinations. But Jayden Cecil did score 38 points in this game. Shot 8/18 from deep.
Cecil is a volume shooter who had relatively modest overall percentages of 42.7% from the field, 38.3% from threes, and 71.1% from the free throw line. Scores a lot of points but takes a lot of shots to get them. That’s not a problem though. This team gave him good rebounders to cover the misses, he’s got a quick release and great balance which allows him to let fly from pretty much anywhere, he’s a multi-level scorer who can also beat a dude off the dribble, and if you watch him play you’ll see he’s far from selfish about it too. Excellent vision and always willing to pass to a guy in a better position. This dude is a tremendous talent.
Jayden Cecil at the 2026 FIBA U17 World Cup
209 points in seven games makes him the top scorer at the entire tournament. His 42 points against Türkiye was the highest individual scoring game of any player and he had three of the top seven high-scoring games. Didn’t get him an MVP trophy because that, naturally, went to Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje of USA for leading the champs to an eight-straight title at this event. Didn’t even get him into the All Star Five which was entirely made up of players whose teams made the top four. That’s fair enough too.
But Jayden Cecil’s put himself on the map with his U17 World Cup performances. Can’t ever remember Aotearoa having this type of prospect before, someone who scores at will with the size and athleticism to match. Maybe not quite as explosive as the best Americans of his age but he’ll hold his own there. Absolutely one to track as he moves towards college and hopefully one day the NBA as well.
Junior Tall Blacks at the 2026 FIBA U17 World Cup
And guess what? Next week the Women’s U17s get their turn. The Junior Tall Ferns are in a group with Canada, Egypt, and Italy. Seems to be a little more buzz about what this JTF squad can achieve. Their squad is as follow…
Emilia Ainley, Shamar Broughton, Charis Broughton, Elisa Brown, Madelin Eliadis, Sinai Foai, Ava Jones, Areta Kahura, Sienna Maurice, Katie Moors, Imani Rasmussen, Nahala Toelieu
For The Paid Subscribers…
Charlisse Leger-Walker’s emerging new WNBA starter status
The time Erling Haaland couldn’t score against Nando Pijnaker & George Stanger
The Wellington Phoenix shrunk their squad a little further on Friday when they released 19yo forward Gabriel Sloane-Rodrigues. He signed a three-year pro contract back in 2024, shortly after debuting off the bench to become the first 16yo to play A-League for the club. Luke Brooke-Smith broke that youngest player record nine months later but GSR got there first... around the same time, Oskar Zawada picked him out as the most talented player in the academy. Now he’s been released with a year still remaining on that contract after only making five substitute appearances across three seasons.
GSR: “There’s been lots of ups and downs, but overall it’s been really enjoyable. I had a meeting with Greeny and he gave me the option to leave or stay. I thought it was the best decision to leave and explore an adventure elsewhere. I’ve had great teammates and great staff in my couple years here that have really helped me develop in a professional environment. I learnt a lot at the academy, and they played a huge role in me signing my first professional contract, so I’m really grateful for all they did.”
Sloane-Rodrigues was due to move from a scholarship to a full contract this year and from a Nix perspective that was looking like a wasted roster spot, hence coach Chris Greenacre called him into his office and said: what do ya reckon, son? Obviously the writing’s on the wall at that point. Even though Greenacre coached him at Nix and NZ U20s level, he doesn’t forecast as a natural fit in Greeny’s (expected) system. Definitely suffered from Chiefy’s departure... although it’s not like he was playing much under Italiano either. Probably gotta admit he’s stalled over the past 18 months... despite some bright stuff for the Reserves in the National League.
His problem is that he’s not an easy player to pin down. Should he be a winger throwing in stepovers and wriggling past tackles? Should he be a Sarpreet Singh type central attacking midfielder getting into pockets and being creative? He sorta got stuck in between those ideals, just as he got stuck in between being too good for the U20s but not good enough for the A-League squad.
This is a funky spot for the Phoenix because Luke Supyk was given a multi-year deal prior to GSR’s promotion and he’s also been allowed to leave after failing to kick on. Luke Brooke-Smith has had way more opportunities but there was a feeling throughout last year, under both managers, that he was being underused. Nathan Walker unfortunately missed all of last season with injury but it’s not clear where he sits moving forward. Guys like Luke Flowerdew, Ryan Watson, and Ben Wallace have all walked in recent times without getting first team offers. The club is in a great spot when it comes to developing centre-backs (Hughes, Smith, Kelly-Heald) and goalkeepers (Kelly-Heald, McCarron). Fullbacks (Sheridan, Loke) and midfielders (Roa Conchie, Casidy) are doing alright. But there are big question marks over how they’re handling their young forwards. Hopefully LBS and Walker can alter the course next term.
Auckland FC have been busy too, giving extensions to Jonty Bidois, Oliver Middleton, and Felipe Gallegos. In typical AFC media fashion they haven’t specified how long the deals are for so we’ll assume they’re all one-year contracts. That’d make most sense for a pair of unproven youngsters and a 34yo visa midfielder who finished last season injured. Gallegos joins Hiroki Sakai in returning for a third season as an import. Louis Verstraete and Sam Cosgrove still have unknown futures while Guillermo May’s departure has already been announced.
Verstraete feels like the more important retention in midfield after Howieson’s heroics in the finals series and the addition of Lachlan Bayliss... what they need is a defensive-minded dude. But perhaps they see Gallegos as that guy. Or maybe they’re planning on bringing back Verstraete as well and just wanna have mad depth in that position (or view Bayliss as an attacking option). That all remains to be seen - not holding out much expectation of Jake Brimmer seeing out his contract though. Sounds like Gallegos is happy and settled with his family in town and there’s not much risk to bringing him back since they won a grand final with the guy only fit enough for the bench anyway.
As for the two young’uns, again the lack of clarity in the announcements is bloody annoying but you’d have to assume from this wording...
Bidois, 21, and Middleton, 20, signed scholarship deals with Auckland FC before the club’s inaugural season; the extension means they are now officially signing on as first-team players.
... that the lads have been promoted to first team deals. That makes sense for Bidois who is a promising striker with 13 A-League appearances under his belt (all off the bench). Scored some good goals for the U20s and then moved up to Pro League where he remained effective, starting in both the semi-final and grand final of that championship run. Needs to show a bit more threat in the ALM but he deserves the opportunity based on his development thus far.
Middleton’s a much stranger one. Attacking midfielder who never even made a squad in his first year with the club, played seven minutes against Brisbane early last season in his debut, then busted his ACL and was done for the season. That injury prevented him from doing any Pro League stuff where he’d probably have gotten a run otherwise. Did make two Aussie Cup appearances... but he must have been training the house down to get promoted to a full contract off the back of very limited evidence otherwise, especially after they’ve already released Finn McKenlay.
Middleton looked alright in that short debut cameo, it’s just that Van Fitzharris and Bailey Ferguson did a lot more in a similar position when given their chances. You’d imagine those two should benefit from the scholarship deals that have been freed up by this and the Coulibaly/McKenlay releases. Based on what we’ve learned through A-League and Pro League selections (as well as the ages of the players in question), you’d have to figure that guys like Aston Burns, James Mitchell, Isa Prins, Eli Jones, Nathan Martin, and Dejaun Naidoo are among the others in contention for scholar nods.
Musical Jam...
