Lingering Patiently
Aotearoa at the World Athletics Indoor Champs, Blackcaps & Domestic Cricket stats, Wellington Phoenix positivity & more
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Aotearoa Warriors Diary: The Three Young Aussies (Luke Hanson, Jesse Soric, Tallan Egan) (Rugby League)
Aotearoa Warriors Diary: Getting The Ball To Roger Tuivasa-Sheck (Rugby League)
Kiwi-NRL Spotlight: Xavier Willison The Blossoming Big Bopper (Rugby League)
The Football Ferns Have Qualified For The Paris Olympics, No Dramas (Football)
Looking Back At New Zealand’s U17 World Cup Bronze Medallists, Five Years Later (Football)
The Glorious Revival of Kosta Barbarouses at the Wellington Phoenix (Football)
Digging Into the Wellington Phoenix Women’s Clunky Away Form (Football)
Admiring The Wellington Phoenix’s Blossoming Academy Pathways (Football)
The Wellington Phoenix Blokes Are Nine Games Unbeaten And Truckin’ Along (Football)
27fm Weekly Playlist: March 1 (Music)
Scotty’s Word
Lydia Ko finished tied-34th in Singapore. Here are her stats this season...
Results: 1st, 2nd, T34
Average Driving Distance: 248.54m - 96th
Driving Accuracy: 67.26% - 101st
Greens in Regulation: 75% - 30th
Putts per GiR: 1.78 - 28th
Putting Average: 29.17 - 18th
Sand Saves: 84.62% - 6th
Scoring Average: 69.67 - 8th
Rounds Under Par: 10 - 4th
Race to CME Globe: 1st
Player of the Year: 1st
Blackcaps lost to Australia and it sucked. Will O'Rourke getting injured also sucks but another young seamer has been called up in Ben Sears. Sears isn't the best seamer in domestic cricket this summer but he does have a splash of x-factor like O'Rourke. Sears is fast and hostile. How he moves the red ball in Christchurch (if selected) will be intriguing as his T20I mahi has mainly featured pace - bowling fast with slower ball variations.
Sears this summer followed by his career mahi...
Plunket Shield: 9w @ 38avg/3.7rpo
Ford Trophy: 7w @ 44avg/5.1rpo
Super Smash: 5w @ 23avg/8.3rpo
FC: 27avg/3.6rpo
LA: 34avg/5.6rpo
T20: 19avg/7.8rpo
T20I: 20avg/7.8rpo
What did I learn from the North Island vs South Island T20 series? Miakaela Greig should be in the White Ferns mix - a spot behind Kate Anderson in the depth chart. Greig’s fielding always shines in Super Smash, she’s mature and most importantly, she can ‘access boundaries’.
Greig's mahi in North vs South: 40 off 33 | 18 off 20 | 26* off 18
Greig batted third in the first two games and dropped down the order to seven in the third game. Her stats this summer are below and her HBJ Shield strike-rate of 96 is the highest for batters with 150 runs, second only to Lea Tahuhu's 118sr for batters with 100+ runs.
HBJ Shield: 260 runs @ 52avg/96sr
Super Smash: 111 runs @ 13avg/107sr
Greig's low Super Smash average is balanced a bit by her strike-rate (above average in women’s Super Smash). Her average was also higher than other notables (Izzy Sharp, Polly Inglis, Jess Kerr, Hayley Jensen, Oliva Gain, Izzy Gaze, Leigh Kasperek, Natalie Cox).
Plunket Shield round up...
Northern Districts vs Central Districts - drawn
CD: 427
Curtis Heaphy 74 runs, Greg Hay 53, Will Clark 57, Angus Schaw 114
Matt Fisher 4w, Joe Walker 3w, Kristian Clarke 2w
ND: 331
Henry Cooper 83, Bharat Popli 111
Ajaz Patel 7w, Liam Dudding 2w
CD: 117/2
Curtis Heaphy 58*
Canterbury vs Wellington - Wellington win
Canterbury: 526
Chad Bowes 114, Rhys Mariu 145, Cole McConchie 82
Logan van Beek 3w, Peter Younghusband 3w
Wellington: 308
Gareth Severin 61, Nick Kelly 138
Angus McKenzie 4w, Ed Nuttall 3w, Sean Davey 2w
Canterbury: 109
Mitch Hay 35*
Nathan Smith 6w
Wellington: 328
Gareth Severin 53, Nick Kelly 56, Muhammad Abbas 110*, Nathan Smith 75*
Zak Foulkes 2w
Otago vs Auckland - drawn
Auckland: 410
Sean Solia 62, Mark Chapman 123, Jock McKenzie 74
Travis Muller 3w, Ben Lockrose 3w, Jacob Duffy 2w, Dean Foxcroft 2w
Otago: 319
Thorn Parkes 67, Max Chu 48, Ben Lockrose 48
Harjot Johal 4w, Louis Delport 3w
Auckland: 295/4
Will O'Donnell 70, Rob O'Donnell 151, George Worker 52
Traivs Muller 2w
Otago: 327/9
Dean Foxcroft 174, Luke Georgeson 64
Harjot Johal 3w, Louis Delport, 3w, Danru Ferns 2w
Plunket Shield Stat Leaders
Batting
Nick Kelly: 510 runs @ 56avg
Sean Solia: 470 runs @ 52avg
Gareth Severin: 429 runs @ 47avg
Henry Nicholls: 393 runs @ 78avg
Max Chu: 331 runs @ 33avg
Joe Carter: 330 runs @ 55avg
Muhammad Abbas: 330 runs @ 55avg
Greg Hay: 328 runs @ 36avg
Rob O'Donnell: 324 runs @ 54avg
Mitch Hay: 315 runs @ 45avg
Bowling
Nathan Smith: 28w @ 15avg/2.9rpo
Jacob Duffy: 23w @ 21avg/2.8rpo
Scott Kuggeleijn: 22w @ 16avg/2.9rpo
Ajaz Patel: 20w @ 24avg/2.9ro
Kristian Clarke: 19w @ 20avg/3.4rpo
Ray Toole: 18w @ 23avg/3rpo
Brett Hampton: 17w @ 16avg/2.6rpo
Zak Foulkes: 17w @ 24avg/3rpo
Peter Younghusband: 17w @ 25avg/3.1rpo
Doug Bracewell: 16w @ 16avg/2.6rpo
Gotta go pay the bills so no rugby league notes today. Whipped up two NZ Warriors yarns over the weekend so check those out in the reading menu.
Musical jam...
Wildcard’s Notebook
Amidst all the other beautiful sport going on right now, Aotearoa also just happens to be having an outstanding World Athletics Indoor Championships. In fact we had our best ever World Indoors, hauling in four medals as well as a couple other impressive performances. Four medals: two golds and two silvers. Two other fourth places. Good enough for third on the overall country medal table...
The golds were won by Hamish Kerr and Geordie Beamish. Incredible efforts from both of them. Kerr set a new national record of 2.36m in the Men’s High Jump to take the victory there, which also happens to be the highest clearance by anyone in 2024. The other two fellas on the podium only cleared 2.28m, with Kerr wrapping up gold thanks to a 2.31m clearance then boosting the bar for giggles and clearing the world leading mark at the second attempt.
Meanwhile Beamish has been steadily lurking as a 1500m presence for a couple of years now, though his best disciplines have usually been the longer distances. Maybe that helped him here because he was lingering patiently back in tenth after 1100 metres only to blitz the field on the final lap with a magical sprint finish. Check it out...
That field wasn’t at full strength for the 1500m, to be fair (which basically means there was no Jakob Ingebrigtsen). But that time of 3:36.54 is a personal best for Beamish... who has already qualified for the Steeplechase and 5000m at the Olympics (though will probably prioritise the Steeplechase) and has hinted that he was mostly doing the 1500m for speed conditioning. We’ll see if that’s still the case after this effort, though this speed wasn’t enough to qualify him automatically. Also note that the Women’s 1500m final included Maia Ramsden who finished tenth, qualifying past the heats in her first major senior event at 21 years old (she’s been on the USA college scene).
Tom Walsh got himself a silver medal in the shot put. Completes the set for him, having already won two golds and two bronzes at this event. He drilled 22.07 metres with his first attempt but wasn’t able to beat than with his remaining efforts. Meanwhile the legend Ryan Crouser hit 22+ on all five of his registered throws, peaking at 22.77m so it wasn’t very close. Third place was Leonardo Fabbri with 21.96m, while the bro Jacko Gill finished fifth with 21.69m. That’s a season’s best for him.
Walsh threw a little bit further in a previous indoor event this year. Last year Walsh topped out at 22.69m which was as close as he’s gotten to his 2019 personal best of 22.90m... so he’s capable of keeping up with Crouser on his best day, but realistically the entire field is competing for silver when that bloke is around. Speaking of Shot Put, Maddison-Lee Wesche wasn’t able to get onto the podium in the Women’s event but she did finish fourth with a PB of 19.62m. That’s exactly the distance that Valerie Adams threw to win bronze at the last Olympics (albeit indoors vs outdoors).
The other silver medal was for Eliza McCartney in the Women’s Pole Vault. Surging back into form in recent months, she only missed out on gold due to countback. She was able to clear 4.80m on her third and final attempt to keep the competition alive against Great Britain’s Molly Caudery – who shares a coach with McCartney. EM went for everything by foregoing 4.85m, which Caudery failed at, to have two goes at 4.90m. Didn’t get it... but she just wanted to stretch herself out with future competitions in mind so it’s all good. This was her first major podium for six years.
In the Women’s 60 metre sprint, Zoe Hobbs set a season’s best in her heat with 7.15 seconds, finishing second. That put her into the semis where she ran third in her race with an Oceania record of 7.09 seconds. Then she beat that record again with 7.06 seconds for a fourth-placing in the final. Sizzling pace. Didn’t get the same success for Tiaan Whelpton in the Men’s 60m as he was eliminated with a fifth-spot in his heat... but he did so with a season’s best of 6.67 seconds. Meanwhile James Preston also missed out in the Men’s 800m heats but ran a national record of 1:47.59 in the process.
Add that all together and we had ten athletes in attendance. Two gold medals. Two silver medals. Two fourth-places. A fifth place. Another finalist. Season’s bests, personal bests, national records galore.
Prior to this event, Aotearoa had only won 12 medals in total at World Indoor Champs. Six of those being golds, all of them by shot putters: Valerie Adams with four, Tom Walsh with two. Last time, in Belgrade 2022, we only pocketed a pair of bronze medals: one for Tom Walsh and one for Hamish Kerr. The time before that, Birmingham 2018, it was a Tom Walsh gold and nothing else. The previous best medal haul came in Portland 2016 when Walsh got a gold, Adams got a bronze, and Nick Willis chipped in with a 1500m bronze.
Aotearoa Medals At World Athletics Indoor Championships
1986 – Kim Robertson – BRONZE – Women’s 200m
2008 – Valerie Adams – GOLD – Women’s Shot Put
2010 – Valerie Adams – GOLD – Women’s Shot Put
2012 – Valerie Adams – GOLD – Women’s Shot Put
2014 – Valerie Adams – GOLD – Women’s Shot Put
2014 – Tom Walsh – BRONZE – Men’s Shot Put
2016 – Valerie Adams – BRONZE – Women’s Shot Put
2016 – Tom Walsh – GOLD – Men’s Shot Put
2016 – Nick Willis – BRONZE – Men’s 1500m
2018 – Tom Walsh – GOLD – Men’s Shot Put
2022 – Tom Walsh – BRONZE – Men’s Shot Put
2022 – Hamish Kerr – BRONZE – Men’s High Jump
2024 – Eliza McCartney – SILVER – Women’s Pole Vault
2024 – Tom Walsh – SILVER – Men’s Shot Put
2024 – Hamish Kerr – GOLD – Men’s High Jump
2024 – Geordie Beamish – GOLD – Men’s 1500m
Note that Dame Val’s 2010 gold was initially a silver that was later upgraded to a gold after old mate Nadezhda Ostapchuk got busted for doping.
There was another sweet victory for the Wellington Phoenix blokes last night, with Ben Old scoring twice and Oskar van Hattum getting the other on the way to a 3-2 result at home to Adelaide United. No Oskar Zawada and Kosta Barbarouses only available off the bench so all three goals were scored by academy players. Bit of a laugh seeing OVH and David Ball both rushing for the same goal-line tap-in knowing that neither had scored at all this season prior. Ball still hasn’t.
Will just say that the game swung significantly after Kosta Barbarouses came on. Up until then it had been a scrappy contest, afterwards the Nix rolled them with fluid footy creating chance after chance and could have scored more. They had seven shots in the first 68 minutes, they had eight shots in the last 22 minutes (plus change). Two of those goals came after that point as well.
Here’s our Academy Player Stats update after that beautiful result...
12 Academy Players Used
7464 Academy Minutes (37.78% of available mins)
130 Academy Appearances (78 of them starts)
6 Academy Debuts
5 Goals & 8 Assists from Academy Players
Compare that to the past five years in this graph from the write-up two weeks ago...
Ah but as that was happening, the Welly Nix Women were busy losing yet another away game, going down 5-3 against Melbourne Victory. This means that they’ve now lost seven of their past eight games. Of course all seven of those defeats were in Australia so keep that in mind. It’s been a disgusting run of fixtures, made possible by having six of their first nine games at home, a home game snapped up by the Unite Round, and another home game postponed due to international player absences.
This one got ugly real fast as they conceded after only 10 minutes then found themselves 4-0 down at half-time. The first three goals all came about due to the team’s inability to win a defensive header, while the fourth was an own goal from a shot that hit the crossbar and dropped down onto keeper Rylee Foster’s back. That lack of aerial prowess was also notable from the Football Ferns in their recent games (more in attack than in defence though), which could be something to track. Paul Temple subbed off both his fullbacks (Zoe McMeeken and Hailey Davidson) at half-time which is another thing to track.
But nobody wants to read bad news on a Monday evening so instead here are five positives to take from that match...
1) The Return of Specky
Mariana Speckmaier went off injured two games ago, missing the 3-0 defeat against Western United last week. Thankfully the international break came at a good time to limit her absence and she was able to play the last half hour off the bench here... scoring the team’s third goal with a wicked finish. The Nix have a +6 goal difference in the 1254 mins that Speckmaier has played, the Nix have a -8 goal difference in the 276 minutes that she’s missed. Much of that being last game and the first half of this game, but even still there’s no player that more influences the team’s success.
2) Second Half Battling
They were 4-0 down at half-time. They lost 5-3. That means they won the second half 3-1, with an own goal from a Hope Breslin corner, a thumping finish from Mickey Robertson, and a turnover from Alyssa Whinham leading to Speckmaier’s goal immediately after the Robertson strike. Obviously the Victory had already done the damage by then but it was a relief to see that fightback, a bit of mental fortitude, some grittiness, ya know? They’re going to need that over the remaining five matches so this should give them some confidence... as well as establishing a few selection headaches. Not only with individuals but also with the back three formation again appearing to nudge things into a more encouraging place.
3) The Performance of Alyssa Whinham
She’s only played a few times this season and mostly off the bench, so it took the international call-ups for Whinham to begin to find some prominence. Two of her three starts have come in the past two matches. Two big defeats... but Whinham has shown some brightness. The skills are undeniable. The trick is to turn her tricks into goals and assists, as well as asserting herself more physically (easy to forget she’s only 20 years old, still early days). Well, she set up a goal by barging an opponent off the ball in this game. It’s only one moment but it was a big moment, one that shows her progress.
4) Twenty Minutes of Errington
Another player with huge potential in this squad is Helena Errington. The young midfielder got another twenty-odd minutes in this match, her third appearance in the ALW, getting to do the Macey Fraser role. She’s not on Fraser’s level yet, of course, but she’s got that same eye for a clever pass (sometimes to where they’re thinking ahead of their teammates – suggesting an ability to scale things up at higher levels). It wasn’t a cameo where Errington dominated or anything, but she looked comfortable and effective. One to keep an eye on over the last month of the season. With the midfield looking a bit messy at the moment, she’s someone who could do a job.
5) The Impending Homecoming
It’s looking unlikely that the WahiNix can make the top six from here, although a draw between Newcastle and Perth does help the cause. Probably got to win four out of five from here on out. Fortunately, three of their remaining games are at home (Adelaide, Sydney FC & Western Sydney), while they also have an away trip to Canberra United in there too and CU are the last team that they beat. They will have to deal with a visit to Perth Glory on Friday night first... but if they can somehow sneak something from that one then they’ll have four potentially winnable games to follow. It ain’t over quite yet.
The Last Ten Instances of Test 5-Fors By Spinners In Aotearoa
Nathan Lyon (Australia) – 6/65 in Wellington 2024
Glenn Phillips (New Zealand) – 5/45 in Wellington 2024
Dane Piedt (South Africa) – 5/89 in Hamilton 2024
Neil Brand (South Africa) – 6/119 in Mount Maunganui 2024
Jack Leach (England) – 5/157 in Wellington 2023
Keshav Maharaj (South Africa) – 6/40 in Wellington 2017
Keshav Maharaj (South Africa) – 5/94 in Dunedin 2017
Sunil Narine (West Indies) – 6/91 in Hamilton 2013
Dinesh Kaneria (Pakistan) – 7/168 in Napier 2009
Harbajan Singh (India) – 6/63 in Hamilton 2009
So... that’s one fiver for a Blackcaps spinner in the past 15 years. Jeetan Patel took 5/110 against the West Indies in December 2008 for the previous instance before G-Philly’s big mahi the other day. To be fair, a few of those bags were more about bowling long spells in huge innings rather than tearing through a side like Nathan Lyon did yesterday (Jack Leach needed 61.3 overs to do what he did – that was in the third innings of the 1-run victory).
Also pretty weird that there have been four of these baggies in the three home Tests this summer. It has been a dry summer and that seems to be affecting the pitch conditions. Not sure whether that’ll translate to Christchurch or not... probably not since Hagley Oval has hosted 10 matches in the past decade and spinners average 55.79 in those conditions, it’s the Spinner’s Graveyard of NZ (meanwhile pace bowlers average 28.89 at Hagley). Nor with a bout of rain sweeping across the country as we speak.
Spin vs Seam at NZ Test Venues Since 2010
VENUE | SEAM AVG | SPIN AVG | DIFFERENTIAL
Eden Park, Auckland | 26.56 | 56.15 | +29.59
Seddon Park, Hamilton | 30.42 | 48.76 | +18.34
Bay Oval, Mt Maunganui | 32.15 | 32.46 | +0.31
Basin Reserve, Wellington | 35.29 | 38.67 | +3.38
Hagley Oval, Christchurch | 28.89 | 55.79 | +26.90
University Oval, Dunedin | 39.23 | 41.71 | +2.48
And now something to listen to...