Lingering Triples
Lingering Triples
White Ferns new era, Charlisse Leger-Walker x Tafara Gapare, fringe Blackcaps, Welly Nix women ponderings & the final Women's National League Team of the Week
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The Six Aotearoa Warriors Juniors To Learn About (Rugby League)
Francis Manuleleua And The Kiwi-NRL Panthers (Rugby League)
How Are The Wellington Phoenix Lads Looking Ahead of the A-League’s Return? (Football)
Scotty’s Word
White Ferns won their first ODI against Bangladesh, moving to 4-0 against the tourists in the T20I and ODIs. Aotearoa is currently fifth on the Women's Championship ladder and the top-five teams receive automatic qualification for the 2025 World Cup while the other five teams go through further qualification tournaments. Two more wins and the kiwis will climb further up the ladder.
This is Aotearoa's second series in the Women’s Championship after the tour of West Indies. This provides a nice split between ODIs earlier this year featuring the World Cup and a new era for White Ferns.
Suzie Bates scored her second 50+ score in this new cycle with 93* (102sr) against Bangladesh and Maddy Green continues to rise up the White Ferns batting charts with 59* (84sr).
Green's development is the most important aspect of recent White Ferns mahi. This is amplified by Sophie Devine’s 60 runs @ 15avg in four games. There is a similar vibe in the bowling department as Devine has taken 2w @ 41.5avg in 19.4 overs and Amelia Kerr has 1w @ 108avg in 37 overs.
A-Kerr has taken 17w @ 37.41avg this year. It's her third year in a row averaging 30+ in ODI bowling, after four years below 30avg. A-Kerr is shining as a batter though with 652 runs @ 54.33avg/86sr this year. A-Kerr, Green, Bates and Lauren Down (90 runs @ 30avg) are the only kiwis with 90+ runs in the Women's Championship so far.
Jess Kerr's 4w @ 2.3rpo against Bangladesh takes her to 9w @ 9avg/3.11rpo in the WC. J-Kerr had no wickets in five consecutive games and she took 3w in nine games (all T20) prior to this ODI haul. J-Kerr, Devine, Jensen and Molly Penfold are the only kiwi seamers who have bowled in multiple games during WC. Devine and Jensen are averaging 35+ and Penfold is yet to take a wicket in 11 overs (2w @ 62.5avg in her ODI career).
Hannah Rowe has only played one of the four WC games, same with Tahuhu. White Ferns staff obviously love Penfold's athletic style and I'm curious about Rowe's all-round value in this role. Rowe leads Central for runs after two games of HBJ Shield, she hasn't quite dominated with the ball though (2w @ 40avg/6.15rpo).
J-Kerr and Jensen are joined by spinners Fran Jonas and Eden Carson in the group of bowlers with 3+ wickets. I love the White Ferns spin trio and this will be a key aspect of their T20 World Cup campaign, which could seep into White Ferns ODI stuff as well. Carson didn't play the first ODI but she will get a crack at some point.
I have been pondering selection battles for fringe Blackcaps ahead of their tour to Pakistan. Blackcaps may roll with their strongest possible group in Tests and ODIs vs Pakistan, then take the piss for ODIs and T20Is in India. Take the piss/give depth players experience in tough conditions. The ODIs vs India are not part of the World Cup Super League.
Batting: Will Young, Henry Nicholls, Mark Chapman
Young is the Test opener who could push for more ODI opportunities. Nicholls feels like he has dipped out of Blackcaps stuff but still played six Tests this year. Chapman is in a low key slump with 36 runs @ 9avg in Ford Trophy after four games.
Wicket-keepers: Tom Blundell, Dane Cleaver
Tom Latham is the ODI w/k. Devon Conway is the T20I w/k. Blundell is the Test w/k. Dane Cleaver has a chance to pounce on the back up white-ball role, as well as overtaking Cameron Fletcher as the back up Test w/k.
Spinners: Mitchell Santner, Michael Bracewell, Ish Sodhi, Ajaz Patel, Will Somerville, Michael Rippon, Rachin Ravindra
Touring Pakistan requires spin and Aotearoa has lots of spinners. Rolling with similar finger spinners doesn't excite me, although the Santner/Bracewell combination adds batting oomph. Patel is likely to get the leading Test gig and he could be supported by the Santner/Bracewell/Ravindra types. Somerville has been fabulous as Auckland's main spinner beneath the radar. Sodhi's interesting because the tour of Pakistan features Test and ODIs, the two formats where Sodhi gets the least mahi.
Seamers: Blair Tickner, Jacob Duffy, Ben Sears
More spinners means less seamers and possibly none of these three entering the mix. All three have enjoyed time and space to develop around the Blackcaps. Duffy is the swinger, Tickner hits the deck and Sears is the hostile x-factor. One of these lads is likely to elevate during the next stint of Ford Trophy and possibly command selection as a squad member.
Musical jam…
Wildcard’s Notebook
Having written about the current top Aotearoa male basketball prospect in Tafara Gapare in the last newsletter, today he had another banger of a game as UMass bounced back from defeat in their previous game to topple Hofstra 71-56. It was a tied game at half-time but they smashed it out the rest of the way and ah yes who top scored for them? That would be Tafara Gapare with his 13 points off the bench. 20 minutes played shooting 5/10 overall with 2/3 from deep. Also had a rebound, a block, and a steal. At one stage he scored eight straight points and it was that little burst that blew things open for his team.
It wasn’t just his scoring either, his defensive presence was where it started. His team was actually down a point as he checked back in during the second half, soon to be two points as a fella was in the middle of making two free throws. But he soon made two buckets in transition, including a three-point play, and hit a triple in between them thus in the space of a few minutes this went from a close game to a comfortable win.
Surely it won’t be long until Tafara Gapare finds himself in the starting line-up. He’s changing games whenever he steps on the floor and that’s something that we very rarely see outta kiwi ballers in college. He played almost exactly half this one (give or take a couple of seconds) and when he was on the floor his team scored nine more points than when he was off with a significant improvement in the turnover stakes. Pretty soon twenty minutes should turn into thirty minutes. Dude’s only gonna get more hype as this goes along.
But while Gapare is introducing himself, Aotearoa’s number one female basketball prospect is already a superstar within her realms and despite a chunky defeat she had one of the best games yet. Washington State went down 82-66 to rivals Washington this afternoon but Charlisse Leger-Walker scored a career best 40 points in the loss. That’s 40 points out of 66 total for her team, do the maths. The next top scorer on her team had 10.
CLW made 14/26 field goals including making seven three-pointers (from 12 attempts). She’s the first player in her conference to score 40+ points since 2019 and was only one point shy of equalling the university’s record for most points in a game. She’s scored in double-digits in ten consecutive games. She’s now averaging 22.4 points per game this season whilst shooting 48.5% from the field, 41.0% from deep, and 88.2% from the free throw line.
Those are some legitimately remarkable numbers. Massive improvements on her first two years on all counts – especially the three-point shooting which had been lingering below 30% across her freshman and sophomore seasons (32.8% in year one, 27.2% in year two). She was always going to give that a boost as she got more experienced but this has been crazy.
Not good from the Wellington Phoenix women as they went down 3-0 to Canberra United on Saturday. What’s concerning is that they seem to have a new critical problem every week. From the individual errors against Melbourne City to the late collapse against Western United to a lack of creativity against Melbourne Victory (as well as a set piece concession) to now a mess of transition defence.
It’s hard to defend against counters at the best of times but the Phoenix in that first half just kept losing the ball in bad areas. Betsy Hassett was the worst culprit and despite the fact that this Canberra team looked to be the best bet for points that the Nix have come up against yet... they’re simply not going to be competitive if their best player is playing that poorly.
To be fair to Hassett, she was getting swarmed by the Canberra press with very little help around her. Chloe Knott covered heaps of ground but they kinda just needed her to be more disciplined and shore up the middle. Alyssa Whinham is there to be an attacker and shouldn’t be asked to drop back. Hence there’s not enough protection for the back four and it’s getting messy. This was a bad loss.
What probably needs to happen is a formation change. The only alternative would be to drop Knott (or play her elsewhere... centre-forward like last year wouldn’t be a bad call – or Whinham as the CF and Knott as the CAM) and pick a defensive option like Isabel Gomez or Grace Wisnewski when they’re ready to start. The Nix did look considerably better after Te Reremoana Walker replaced Whinham with half an hour left and did that exact thing. Sat in as a defensive midfielder. Problem is, if they do that permanently then there’s no room for Whinham in the team who is one of their few truly creative players.
Three at the back is another funky option. Probably have Walker or MVDM in there alongside Barry and Taylor - players who can knuckle down defensively but also step forward in possession and pick a pass. That would allow their wide defenders to play higher and their high forwards to play more centrally. Should take the pressure off their midfield a little and if you went 3-4-1-2 you could still keep that Whinham spot. Maybe Satchell and Robertson/Knott/Rolston up front. Something to think about because they’ve gotta lock things up somehow. Having said that, I’m still completely sure that this team will make steady improvements as the season goes along. Watch it happen.
As for the Phoenix blokes… set pieces, bruh. It drives you mental.
Women’s National League – Team of the Week #13
GK – Maureen Fitzgerald (Auckland United) – First National League start in the last National League game of the year... and while it didn’t start too well getting chipped after seven minutes it was smooth sailing the rest of the way as Fitzgerald continually popped up with key saves as an understrength AUFC team were able to rally back for a 2-1 win away to Central.
RB – Rebekah Trewhitt (Central) – Okay, yeah, she scored the own goal that sent her team to defeat in the 89th minute. But that was unlucky. And apart from the OG Trewhitt was an absolute unit, pushing folks around and getting up and down that right edge as Central produced one of their most balanced performances all season. Deserved at least a point. Didn’t get it. But Trewhitt’s one to watch.
CB – Chelsea Elliott (Northern Rovers) – Always one of the strongest players on the park, Elliott loves a physical battle and Southern United gave her plenty of those. Chuck in a sneaky ability to throw in some unexpected skill and her pinpoint long passing and CE is always one to enjoy watching. A bit of occasional risk-taking has kept her from cracking one of these teams until now... but here we are. Got that stylistic match-up against Southern and laid down the law.
CB – Georgia Martin (Auckland United) – Tidy at the back and a threat every time she went up for a corner kick, eventually getting one on target for the leveller with twenty to play. Had to be sharp against a frisky Central team and she was.
LB – Freya Partridge-Moore (Southern United) – Two starts this season and two Teams of the Week, that’s some efficient work. FPM’s defensive scrappiness and bravery stood out last game and she served up the same dish again in the season finale... except this time she was marking Kelli Brown so multiply the difficulty factor by a few. Those two went kick for kick for the majority of the game and FPM more than held her own. Big respect.
CM – Breeze Durham (Northern Rovers) – Wasn’t really a week for midfielders tbh, but Durham sneaks in after for a typically quiet but effective CDM effort for Rovers. Especially in the first half when Southern barely fired a shot. Would have been even better for Durham had she finished the 1v1 chance late on that could have killed the game off before Southern equalised but the real deal was how Durham swept in front of her backline, cleaning up and preventing trouble – even when SU did get things going it tended to come via direct play over the top or set pieces and wide crosses.
CM – Sophie Williams (Auckland United) – Another very decent midfield display from Williams showing off her class technique and tidy decision making... though it was the set piece deliveries that got her this spot. In particular the two corner kick assists that sealed the comeback win for her side, though there were plenty more where they came from that simply didn’t get that final touch.
CM – Saki Yoshida (Eastern Suburbs) – Trying to figure out who should get the last spot in this team, in a week where there were only three matches played... might as well go with the most underrated midfielder in the competition. The Lilywhites didn’t absolutely dominate possession against Western Springs for long stretches by accident.
FW – Nicole Cooper (Eastern Suburbs) – Another Suburbs forward who moves well off the ball and gets into fantastic areas... just like the rest of them. Cooper scored her fourth goal of the season for the winner against Western Springs. Will that sneak her into the starting team for the grand final?
FW – Sammi Tawharu (Western Springs) – Difficult game without a lot of service for the Springs centre-forward... but one thing about Tawharu is that she doesn’t really need it. She’s one of the more selfless strikers going around, always dropping deep and holding the ball up, laying it off, bringing others into the game. She did all of that to give Springs something to build from against Suburbs and scored a cracker of a goal too.
FW – Deven Jackson (Eastern Suburbs) – In the grand final dress rehearsal, the Lilywhites played without their star Tayla O’Brien, kept safe for next week, but they did bring back Deven Jackson who scored once and set up two others in a 3-2 win. Imagine having Deven Jackson in your team doing this and she’s not even the best player in your squad. Madness.