Just Sayin'
Plunket Shield emerging stars, Marko Stamenic's UCL goal, Josh Curran Warriors exit ramifications, Kiwis in WBBL, MNL Team of the Week & more
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The Kiwi-NRL Juniors Who Helped Australian Teams Make Finals In 2023 (Rugby League)
Aotearoa Kiwis & Kiwi Ferns vs Australia Bumper Preview (Rugby League)
Five Takeaways From The Wellington Phoenix Blokes' Season Opener (Football)
2023 Women’s National League – Week 5 (Football)
2023 Men’s National League – Week 5 (Football)
Flying Kiwis – October 25 (Football)
Scotty’s Word
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NZ Warriors releasing Josh Curran to join Bulldogs brings together two major themes of the Kiwi-NRL season. Neither of which directly involves Curran. He is a solid edge forward but given how this has been reported, I've come to view Curran as overrated. Curran's presence in the NZW top-17 had little influence on results and his best moments came when Marata Niukore or Jackson Ford were missing, or in limited minutes coming off the bench to usually replace Niukore.
The two themes at play here are the local youngsters rising through the NZW pipeline and weird Bulldogs vibes. As noted in recent newsletters; NZW are releasing Curran because they have cheaper youngsters who can play a similar role. Demitric Sifakula is the leading joker who could benefit here as his middle/edge versatility is ideal for the bench. Kalani Going is just as useful and Jacob Laban is likely to make his debut next season with a chance he seals a starting edge forward gig within two seasons.
That's just the fringe NRL lads. Leka Halasima is on the rise and Presley Seumanu could elevate to a consistent edge forward role in NSW Cup next season. Anyone who moves through the NZW pipeline will have a salary cap hit half of Curran's and I genuinely think these youngsters have more upside.
I don't think Curran makes Bulldogs better and I'm fairly low on all things Bulldogs. None of the celebrated Bulldogs signings for 2023 made them better including coach Cameron Ciraldo, the many players signed from Panthers and Reed Mahoney from Eels. Meanwhile two local juniors have departed with Jake Averillo moving to Dolphins and Paul Alamoti moving to Panthers.
Bulldogs also had cultural issues that were well documented. None of their plans to 'reinstall a Bulldogs identity' led to winning footy this season. Fa'amanu Brown may not have fit in that culture after being signed from Tigers. Brown started in round one and was soon shuffled out of the squad. Then he departed for Knights, now he's playing for Aotearoa Kiwis.
This is top of mind because I worked through my observations of the Bulldogs junior pipeline in the latest 'Kiwi-NRL Juniors Who Helped Australian Teams Make Finals in 2023' deep dive. As I wrote there, Bulldogs paid Broncos $500,000 to secure Karl Oloapu and he then finished the season in U21s Jersey Flegg ... with a neck injury.
What about all the Kiwi-NRL juniors who Bulldogs signed? They struggle for game time and I highlighted the difference between Bulldogs and Roosters Kiwi-NRL development, despite Bulldogs defeating Roosters in the U21 final this year.
I find all of this interesting because it differs to the general storyline about Bulldogs. Phil Gould is in charge of all these Bulldogs moves and he is a leading figure in Aussie media, so it's pretty easy for him to control the perception of what Bulldogs are doing. Curran won't have much of an impact on Bulldogs footy and I expect NZW to keep grooving in positive motion. We'll see how that looks next season.
Here is a quick form guide for Blackcaps at the World Cup...
Devon Conway: 152*, 32, 45, 20, 0
Will Young: 0, 70, 54, 17
Rachin Ravindra: 123*, 51, 9, 32, 75
Daryl Mitchell: 48, 89*, 1, 130
Tom Latham: 53, 68, 5
Glenn Phillips: 2w, 4, 16*/1w, 71, 23
Mark Chapman: 5, 25*, 6
Mitchell Santner: 2w, 36*/5w, 1w, 7*/3w, 1/1w
Matt Henry: 3w, 10*/3w, 2w, 1w, 0/1w
Lockie Ferguson: 0w, 3w, 3w, 1/2w
Trent Boult: 1w, 0w, 2w, 2w, 0*/1w
Kane Williamson: 78*
Jimmy Neesham: 0w
Tim Southee: -
Ish Sodhi: -
WBBL cricket rolls along and Amelia Kerr is still yet to feature for Brisbane Heat ... who are 4-0 at the top of the ladder. Here are how the other three wahine are tracking ahead of a busy cluster of games this weekend...
Perth (4th | 2-1)
Sophie Devine: 124 runs @ 62avg/167sr | 2w @ 33.5avg/8.3rpo
Sydney Sixers (7th | 0-3)
Suzie Bates: 14 runs @ 4.6avg/48sr
Jess Kerr: 11 runs @ 5.5avg/137sr | 2w @ 28.5avg/8.1rpo
Plunket Shield round two starts tomorrow Here are my top youngsters from the opening round…
Sandeep Patel
Northern Districts | 24yrs
145 runs vs Otago. First-Class average of 53.3 after two games. Scores of 69 and 56* against touring Sri Lanka and England teams (for NZ 11s).
Zak Foulkes
Canterbury | 21yrs
7w @ 2.9rpo in the first round. FC bowling average of 20.6. List-A bowling average of 25.7 and T20 bowling average of 15.3. Yet to score big runs but Foulkes opened for Canterbury in their loss to Wellington and is likely to drop down the order in a stronger Canterbury 11.
Muhammad Abbas
Wellington | 19yrs
98 runs in the first game with a knock of 57, plus 2w via lefty seam. Averaging 41.4 with the bat after eight games and he played for Aotearoa A this year.
Fraser Sheat
Canterbury | 25yrs
6w in the first game with a FC bowling average of 25.35 after 30 games. Sheat also has two scores over 50 while averaging 19 with the bat in FC.
Nathan Smith
Wellington | 25yrs
6w and 63 runs in the first game, with a knock of 49. Smith averages 27 with the bat in FC and 29 with the ball, while averaging above 20 in two batting formats and below 30 in two bowling formats. Smith made his FC debut in 2016 and has sneaky experience, hovering around 40 games in each format.
Musical jam…
Wildcard’s Notebook
Marko Stamenic scored a goal in the UEFA Champions League. It didn’t prevent his team from losing 3-1 away to Red Bull Leipzig but it did mean that Wynton Rufer is no longer alone as the only New Zealander to have scored in the most illustrious club competition going around. Rufer, of course, tied for the golden boot the year that he played UCL, scoring 8 goals in 10 games to share the trophy with some bloke called Ronald Koeman.
This goal had been coming got a long while. Stamenic had been teasing that attacking aspect to his game during preseason, though hasn’t had as many chances to show it since the real stuff started. Red Star have mixed up their formations quite a lot and Stamenic has usually been a defensive midfielder. Lately they’ve been trying a 3-5-2 and with three CMs that allowed him to operate higher up. Getting into the area with those decisive late runs. He’s had a fair few close calls with long shots and blocked efforts during the domestic fixtures. He also had that goal against Qatar for the All Whites ultimately wiped off his record when that game was abandoned. Safe to say it was worth it for that moment in Leipzig though.
It’s this more advanced role, as a number eight who gets forward on attack, that we’re likely to see from him in most All Whites games – as Joe Bell tends to own the CDM spot. At this stage we can say that Stamenic is equally capable as a six or an eight. But his value to the national team might be more in the latter position given how much we could use a ball-retaining craftsman to link things up. Just sayin’: there have only been two instances so far of Bell/Stamenic/Singh all starting the same game and they were both victories (against Curacao and The Gambia).
This result doesn’t do Crvena zvezda any favours as far as qualifying for the next round goes. That was never really a likely outcome, to be fair. But third place would drop them into the Europa League knockouts which is the one to aim for. At the halfway stage of the group, Manchester City are perfect on nine points. Leipzig are next on six having beaten the other two but lost to City. Then Young Boys and Red Star are each on one point with a -4 goal difference. It’s all going to come down to who wins when those two meet against in Switzerland... or if that’s a draw then probably which team gets thrashed by the least in the return match against Man City.
NZers in the Men’s Champions League
Wynton Rufer - 10 games | 888 minutes | 8 goals (Werder Bremen)
Marko Stamenic - 6 games | 508 minutes | 1 goal (FC Copenhagen & Red Star Belgrade)
Chris Killen - 5 games | 137 minutes (Celtic)
Kim Wright - 2 games | 180 minutes (Floriana)
Danny Hay - 1 game | <1 minute (Leeds)
The Breakers lost again last night, going down 97-85 at home to Adelaide. On paper that should’ve been a comfortable victory but Adelaide are proving tricky this season – with Tohi Smith-Milner giving them a solid boost off the bench. TSM played 9 mins in this win vs NZB, logging 5 points and making his only three-point attempt. It was the starters who did the damage though.
Isaac Humphries and Jacob Wiley both had double digit rebounds for the 36ers. In comparison the Breakers’ big men rotation saw Mangok Mathiang only get 9:29, going scoreless with only 1 rebound. Backup centre Dane Pineau played almost exactly the same amount of time and scored 0 points with 0 rebounds. The one personal foul he conceded was his only relevant stat (no shot attempts at all)... and the team was outscored by 13 points in those nine and a half minutes. Meanwhile Zylan Chetham spent a lot of the game as an undersized centre, as he has often done this season, and was probably the team’s best with 17 points on 5/7 shooting with 8 rebounds... but he fractured a bone in his foot during the fourth quarter and will now miss 6-8 weeks.
The rebounding struggles are something I’ve written about before... never have they been worse than this. 41-24 was the rebounding advantage to the Sixers. Annoying thing is that after a topsy first frame, the Breakers led from pillar to post in the second and third quarters only to get smoked 27-14 in the fourth to lose by a dozen points. They did at least give Tom Abercrombie the start so the zero kiwi opening five thing had a temporary reprieve. But it was another concern to see Will McDowell-White only shooting 1/11. Was kinda hoping those shooting inconsistencies might get ironed out this season, alas not so fast (he did have 11 assists though).
The Breaks are in action again on Saturday night against South East Melbourne. They’ll be without Cheatham and it’s too soon to fly in a replacement. Sam Timmins was cut and Rob Loe retired yet. The new Aussies who took their place haven’t been up to much yet. A needless excursion to the USA mid-season means that they (along with Cairns) have now played fewer games than anyone and are 1-3 to start the term, currently sitting dead last. A year ago they already had six wins by the time of their third defeat. In fact they were 11-3 at one stage. The bad vibes are continuing, it seems.
National League Goals + Assist Leaders
MNL Goals
5 – Deri Corfe (NCR), Gianni Bouzoukis (WO)
4 – Jack-Henry Sinclair (WO)
3 – Monty Patterson (Rewa), Lyle Matthysen (CT), Joel Stevens (WO), Angus Kilkolly (AC)
WNL Goals
7 – Sofia Garcia (WS)
5 – Pepi Olliver-Bell (WU), Ella McCann (WP)
3 – Rene Wasi (AU), Amy Hislop (SU), Nicole Cooper (ES), Nikki Furukawa (WK), Margi Dias (SU), Nicola Dominikovich (CU), Kaley Ward (WK)
MNL Assists
6 – Jack-Henry Sinclair (WO)
3 – Kailan Gould (WO), Luis Toomey (ES), Daniel Atkinson (AU), Cam Howieson (AC)
2 – Gavin Hoy (WO), Garbhan Coughlan (CT), Mario Ilich (AC), Nicolas Bobadilla (Rewa), Joel Stevens (WO)
WNL Assists
4 – Kaley Ward (WK)
3 – Liz Savage (WS), Amy Hislop (SU), Bree Johnson (AU), Maisy Dewell (AU), Michaela Roberston (WP)
2 – Emma Main (WP), Sammi Tawharu (WS), Jemma Catherwood (WU), Jess Innes (WS), Zoe Benson (ES), Talisha Green (AU), Abby Rankin (SU), Lilian Davies (WU), Ela Jerez (WS), Charlotte Roche (CU), Sofia Garcia (WS), Renee Bacon (WK)
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Men’s National League Team of the Week #5
GK – Mack Waite (Auckland United) – Sometimes a team loses and their goalie still plays awesome. Actually that happens quite a lot. Like it did when Waite was beaten by three magical goals in defeat to Welly Olympic but made some killer saves to keep his team in range. One of the most consistent glovemen going around.
CB - Tino Contratti (Manurewa) – We’re stacking the CBs this week, starting with Tino from Rewa who, along with Sammy Khan, were superb in repelling Napier City for a battling 1-0 victory. Clean sheet. So many strong interventions. Rewa are now the only team to have blanked Deri Corfe (who’d scored in all four games previously).
CB – Ben Mata (Wellington Olympic) – Absolutely immense in that win against Auckland Utd, a three-pointer that puts them back where they want to be on course for the final. As tidy on the ball as he is brave in the challenge.
CB – Tom Schwarz (Cashmere Technical) – Another solid unit CB leader who laid down the law to all around. Schwarz even scored a penalty (usually Mata’s speciality) but even without that goal he’d have been a candidate for this selection with a commanding effort against the WeeNix.
RM – Gavin Hoy (Wellington Olympic) – Messing with the formation this week to fit in the right folks... Hoy didn’t play wide but who cares. Point is he was excellent for Olympic, a constant source of energy and pressing who protects the ball like it’s part of his family and also scored a banger of a goal.
CM – Michael Den Heijer (Auckland City) – There are a lot of class defensive midfielders in this league but MDH has a case to be the best of them. Against the Lilywhites he was completely overpowering. He sees the ball and he wins the ball. Nobody else has a say in the matter.
CM – Cam Howieson (Auckland City) – ACFC won 2-1 against Eastern Suburbs and Cam Howieson set up both goals. He’s a marvel... but you already knew that.
CM – Matt Tod-Smith (Christchurch United) – Genuinely think he might be the most underrated player in the competition? Although the more CUFC keep winning, the less that’ll be the case. MTS had a goal and an assist in the 3-0 win against Petone. Now if only people can agree on how to spell his name... is it Tod-Smith or Todd-Smith because even official channels seem to get it mixed up.
LM – Joel Stevens (Wellington Olympic) – I’ve said it heaps, I’ll say it again: nobody has a more impressive career highlight reel of National League wondergoals than Joel Stevens. Chuck that wicked dipper of a free kick he scored against Auckland Utd on the list. Plus he had an assist. Plus he was just generally a danger to the opposition from start to finish.
FW – Zander Edwards (Cashmere Technical) – No Garbhan Coughlan, no worries as Zander Edwards celebrated a rare opportunity to start with a solid number nine’s display, including scoring his first of the season in the 2-1 win vs the Phoenix Reserves. Only 18 years old. There’s definitely something to this lad.
FW – Luis Toomey (Eastern Suburbs) – The levels to which Toomey has performed this season, mate. His remarkable late free kick against ACFC means that he’s scored or assist four of the five goals that the Lilywhites have scored this season and he didn’t even play the first two matches. This guy is now an elite MNL creative force.