No Harm, No Foul
White Ferns/Blackcaps on tour, Tom Walsh carnage & sports agent yarns
Podcast
TNC Variety Show - Episode 31
The Niche Cast: Giving The Mehrtens (Blackcaps/Kiwi-NRL Preview)
Reading Menu
Michael Maguire Is Building A Hearty Kiwi-NRL Whanau At Wests Tigers (NRL)
Flying Kiwis – September 7 (Football)
Fair To Say That Flying Kiwis Transfer Season Lived Up To The Hype (Football)
Doffing A Cap To The Welly Nix’s Recruitment Prowess (Football)
Roster Tweaking & Other Offseason Occurrences with the NZ Breakers (Basketball)
27fm Album Jukebox – August 2021 (Music)
Scotty’s Word
Around the grounds…
White Ferns lost to England this morning, thus losing their T20I series 1-2. I’ll get into a full debrief tomorrow morning diving into stats, trends and general Niche Cache business. This T20I series leads into a five-game ODI series and everything for the White Ferns is angling into the World Cup to be played in Aotearoa next year. That has framed my weird vibe observations as selections are skewing younger when there are a bunch of veteran cricketers who consistently out-perform the younger players in domestic cricket who would be solid hole-plugging options to win a World Cup.
We’ll have to wait another week for that ODI series to start but it’s super important. Any White Ferns cricket is important, hosting a World Cup in the ODI format amplifies everything and fresh off this morning’s game I’m pondering forward with this White Ferns ODI angle. Here are the White Ferns ODI results since start of 2019…
2019: LLWLLL.
2020: LLLLLL.
2021: LLWLLL.
Both the wins came when those series were already lost and if Aotearoa hosted the World Cup as scheduled early this year, they would have lost all six of their ODI games in the previous year. This sets up the England series as hugely important to do something in ODI cricket, especially as England won games by 8w and 7w earlier this year in Aotearoa to win that series before Aotearoa grabbed a consolation win.
There were nice moments in this T20I series over in England. Suzie Bates returned from injury, Sophie Devine won player of the series, Leigh Kasperek showed her class and Amy Satterthwaite had a decent knock too. Women’s cricket is all about ODI cricket right now though and for Aotearoa hosting the World Cup, they desperately need some ODI juice to avoid what could be a kinda embarrassing home World Cup.
Tonight we have the Blackcaps wrapping up their T20I series vs Bangladesh. There was a yarn on Stuff about Colin de Grandhomme being in danger of losing his Blackcaps spots, although he’s in this Blackcaps White Ball 2nd 11 so I’d argue he’s already lost his spot. CDG is the obvious one to put in the ‘bad series’ bucket.
Who else is struggling?
Rachin Ravindra has scored 30 runs in 4 innings @ 85.71sr.
Cole McConchie has scored 15 runs in 3inns @ 83.33sr.
The thing is both are there to gain experience and both are doing solid mahi with their spin bowling. Tom Blundell has 42 runs in 4inns @ 77.77sr but he opened in the first two games before Finn Allen returned and Blundell hit 30* in his first game down the order - his best white ball batting role.
Hamish Bennett (1w @ 7rpo), Jacob Duffy, Blair Tickner and Doug Bracewell are the only seamers to play two games as the seamers get rotated in and out. Duffy, Tickner and Bracewell haven’t taken a wicket, while Scott Kuggeleijn took 1w @ 4.66rpo in his lone appearance and Ben Sears went for 11rpo in his 1 over of action. In theory that means it’s a bad series for Duffy, Tickner and Bracewell but seam bowling is rough in this series.
Sears is there for experience so no harm, no foul there. Nor do I really care about the Duffy, Tickner and Bracewell trio struggling to take wickets. The selections for this series and the nature of this series make it tricky to suss out any grand conclusions on players. I won’t be using this series against Ravindra’s batting for example, nor will it serve as a guide on Duffy’s seam bowling. The mere fact that CDG is in this squad tells you all you need to know about CDG right now.
Meanwhile in the Caribbean Premier League…
Glenn Phillips’ Barbados Royals are 2-6, rooted to the bottom of the ladder. Phillips has been solid but far from his domination of recent months (8inns - 174 runs @ 24.85avg/110sr). Tim Seifert has also been solid (7inns - 155 runs @ 31avg/116.54sr) and unlike Phillips, Seifert is playing in a winning team with Trinbago tied for 1st with a 5-3 record.
With my Blackcaps T20 World Cup goggles I’m most interested in Seifert’s work come semi-final/final stage. Phillips’ dip is a coming back to Earth moment and with two games to play for Barbados they’ll need a miracle to crack semi-finals. Seifert has a chance to play pressure cricket and get those reps in ahead of a World Cup.
Who is the best performing CPL kiwi? The bloke not in the World Cup squad - Colin Munro. Munro is the leading run-scorer for Trinbago so far with 183 runs @ 30.50avg/95.31sr. You read correctly with that strike-rate and Munro’s CPL campaign is falling in alignment with the Phillips/Seifert stuff as there isn’t much to report in the Blackcaps T20 World Cup context.
Munro’s doing nothing to show why he should have been in the World Cup squad, while Phillips and Seifert are neither good or bad. In writing all of this I’ve stumbled across a common thread through the White Ferns T20Is in England, Blackcaps in Bangladesh and CPL; it’s fun cricket but I’m stuffing much of it in my cricketing backpack to take forward with me.
I’ve been a curious observer of NZ Warriors matters.
I understand Aotearoa’s connection to NZ Warriors, yet scoping out rugby league coverage of the mainstream media tells folks that the only relevant rugby league matters are Warriors related. Meanwhile, we’ve had 18 Kiwi-NRL debutants this year and I’m tracking serious Kiwi-NRL takeover notes. Now it’s NRL Finals time and I’m frothing for high pressure footy, with a heavy dose of Kiwi-NRL funk a major part in that.
All of which has been covered in my Kiwi-NRL Finals Preview. Tonight’s Storm vs Sea Eagles game is stacked with Kiwi-NRL quality, while the other game I’d highlight is Eels vs Knights with the Eels containing plenty of funk to enjoy. All of this is discussed in that Kiwi-NRL Finals Preview video up top which was taken from the latest Niche Cast podcast.
Here are some random notes…
Two Northland players involved: James Fisher-Harris and Dylan Brown. Both were recruited from Northland.
Three halves from Aotearoa are involved: Kieran Foran, Jahrome Hughes and Brown.
Five players who came up through NZ Warriors are involved: Toafofoa Sipley (extended bench), Erin Clark, Sam Lisone, Siosiua Taukeiaho, Marata Niukore, Isaiah Papali’i.
Kieran Foran and Patrick Herbert both played for NZ Warriors after starting with other clubs.
All levels of Kiwi-NRL are covered…
Veterans: Benji Marshall, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, Jesse Bromwich, Kenny Bromwich, Martin Taupau, Kieran Foran, Kevin Proctor, Siosiua Taukeiaho, Isaac Liu.
Certified Youngsters: Brandon Smith, Nelson Asofa-Solomona, Josh Aloiai, Sitili Tupouniua, Sam Lisone, James Fisher-Harris, Isaiah Papali’i, Marata Niukore, Dylan Brown.
Up and Comers: Reimis Smith, Morgan Harper, Toafofoa Sipley, Naufahu Whyte (ext bench) Patrick Herbert, Erin Clark, Greg Marzhew (ext bench), Jaxson Paulo, Haze Dunster, Makahesi Makatoa, Jirah Momoisea (ext bench), Simi Sasagi (ext bench).
Wildcard’s Notebook
National Football League
The NFL begins this afternoon as the defending champ Tampa Bay Buccaneers, with Tom Brady making his record 300th regular season start, take on the Dallas Cowboys. The team that I, for my sins, happen to support. The Cowboys have QB Dak Prescott returning from a broken leg suffered last season but that didn’t stop the team from finally giving him the huge contract extension that he deserved. Dak is the real deal and with a healthy offensive line and the positional weapons around him that Cowboys offence is gonna be immense. But their defence is likely to remain rather awful so it’s a balancing act. Tampa Bay have kept basically everybody from the title run last time so nothing changes there.
Ordinarily I’d be doing my NFL predictions about this time. The first thing I ever wrote for The Niche Cache, back when we were still on Blogspot, was an NFL prediction thing which I’ve managed to carry on year after year ever since. Until now.
Gonna use this moment to announce my retirement from NFL prediction writing because quite frankly I’m not sure I have the time. They don’t view particularly well, what with the NFL being an acquired taste in this country. So I’ve gotta prioritise the things that are more likely to make a lil money (support us on Patreon, por favor). It’s also not a sport which has a kiwi connection at the moment (there was a time when I was writing about Paul Lasike’s budding NFL career) which goes against the general theme of the website. For Aotearoa Sports.
That and also... I’ll be honest and say I knew there were preseason throwarounds going on but I actually didn’t realise until two days ago that the 2021 season was kicking off so soon. My bad. Already missed the preseason quarterback rankings tradition too... which woulda been a weird one now that both Drew Brees and Philip Rivers have retired. Too many signs all converging that it might be time to hang up the proverbial cleats.
Just for old time’s sakes though, here are some entirely unresearched picks for week one. Maybe I’ll keep sneaking these into the email, we’ll see how it goes.
Dallas Cowboys @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Jacksonville Jaguars @ Houston Texans
Los Angeles Chargers @ Washington Professional Football Team
Seattle Seahawks @ Indianapolis Colts
New York Jets @ Carolina Panthers
Minnesota Vikings @ Cincinnati Bengals
Arizona Cardinals @ Tennessee Titans
San Francisco 49ers @ Detroit Lions
Pittsburgh Steelers @ Buffalo Bills
Philadelphia Eagles @ Atlanta Falcons
Cleveland Browns @ Kansas City Chiefs
Green Bay Packers @ New Orleans Saints
Denver Broncos @ New York Giants
Miami Dolphins @ New England Patriots
Chicago Bears @ Los Angeles Rams
Baltimore Ravens @ Las Vegas Raiders
The Business Behind The Business
People talk about NBA player empowerment (and I’m reading that book about the Brooklyn Nets atm so I have some A LOT of thoughts on that going in both directions). It’s one of those societal buzzwords. But for all the chat about how dudes like LeBron James are out there acting like Player/GMs, the level of influence that Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant wield in Brooklyn... I suspect that more often than not what free agency comes down to for those dudes is simply: where do I want to live, who do I want to play with, where can I win a lot of games, and, most important of all, where will I be valued the most. Much simpler than the power grabs that people envision.
That’s the NBA though. Let’s talk football transfers now, where there are a whole lot more options than just thirty teams to play for. I’ve dug deep on some of the Matt Garbett stuff and how his (very busy) agent was able to finesse that move to Torino. I’ve written in the past about Winston Reid’s six-year contract with West Ham (which still has two years to run) and how it’s probably saved his career to some extent during his long injury recovery. Granted, it’s arguably getting in the way now given West Ham have no intention of playing him regularly. The latest Flying Kiwis has some news on Winnie’s situation: there’s a chance West Ham bite the bullet and offer him an expensive buyout.
Bringing us to this...
This lil development is sneakily fascinating. Stotty’s joined up with Connect Management Group which is a Swedish-based agency that deals specifically with female athletes. No client list on their website but their insta page is full of news and it does look like a predominantly Scandinavian base of players. Stotty has played in Norway before... though she’s also played in Australia, USA, and England so she’s got connections all over the place. Having been at Brighton & Hove when her cancer diagnosis was made you’d imagine that she’s keen to get back overseas after her comeback season for Melbourne City in the W-League and signing with a Euro-based agency surely reinforces that.
That suggests a move to Sweden... where the seasons would line up nicely after a W-League campaign. But not necessarily. CMG recently helped Hanna Bennison (18 year old Swede who was in the Olympics squad) sign with Everton in England. There are more than a couple Italian signings. In fact scrolling down the IG page it’s not long before you see the familiar face of Hannah Wilkinson, recently signed as a teammate to Stotty at Melbourne City and obviously someone who has played for a couple different clubs in Sweden. Particularly interested in what they had to say in the text there...
I’m looking forward to watching Hannah in the Australian league and for a top club like Melbourne City. Melbourne City is a part of the City Football Group which secures an environment in line with Hannah’s high ambitions and professionalism. Melbourne coach Rado Vidosic, awarded coach of the year in the Australian league last season, has a very methodical way of working with both team and individual. We feel confident that Hannah’s qualities with her endless runs, both to open up spaces for teammates and to finish by herself, her game in the box and her natural leadership will fit perfectly into Rado’s way of playing football, says Lisa Ek, Client Manager at CMG
That’s such a cool insight. The idea that they’ve seen specific reasons why Wilkie can have success at a team like Melbourne City and have gone so far as to highlight them like that. It suggests an agency that’s not simply working for the best dollar value for their clients which is always nice. So many kiwi footballers stumble overseas by finding themselves in a bad fit situation – Wilkie’s had one or two of those herself in her career. That’s how you do the player-first thing, folks.
Also of note is that Stotty’s client manager is ex-American pro Ella Masar who played for a variety of teams across her career, which only ended in 2019, including PSG (France), Wolfsburg (Germany), Rosengard (Sweden), and a couple NWSL clubs (America). In fact she was a teammate of Ali Riley’s at FCR for a couple years. Here’s a show they did together last year...
Hence it’s a more expansive set of connections that Ella Masar brings to the table. When Masar retired in 2019 she co-founded a player agency called Doyenne Sport which still seems to be a thing but as of June she’s been working for CMG too so gonna assume that Doyenne has been absorbed as a subsidiary of CMG or something like that, dunno. Anyway, Rebekah Stott at full capacity is one of Aotearoa’s top five female footballers so a dose of ambitious representation will fingers crossed go a long way towards getting her in a very exciting next club scenario. The whole ‘just beat cancer’ thing seems like a wholesome selling point too.
Walshy
Stink finish to the season for Tom Walsh as he could only get a fourth placing at the Diamond League final in Zurich yesterday, missing out on the podium as Ryan Crouser did the expected and claimed the title. Not much going on with the distances in Switzerland. Must have been cold or something. Crouser won only* with 22.67m and had a couple fouls in there, not something you often see from him.
* (‘only’ being a relative term for the world record holder alone)
Not his best day at the office whatsoever but nobody was able to put the pressure on him. Joe Kovacs was second with 22.29m and Armin Sinancevic dark horsed his way into third with a 21.86m banger on his penultimate effort. Tom Walsh could only muster 21.61m. As I say, a stink way to finish things off for the year.
Except for the one attempt where he broke the throwing circle. The toe guard thing. He busted it right off and then picked it up to show it off to the crowd like it was a trophy, what a guy. Caused a bit of a delay to proceedings while they fixed things up too. Good laughs.
Also, if you happen to have a lot of money and a business/service to promote then maybe get a call in to Tommy Walsh’s people (aka Tom Walsh himself) and see if you can rent a bit of chest space because he’s got some available...
Joe Pera Talks To You
Watch this show. It’s on TVNZ On Demand. I discovered it this week and it’s fantastic and I love it. Short sharp episodes. Main dude is like Mr Bean crossed with Bob Ross. It’s funny and it’ll restore your soul at the same time.
RIP MKW
As a typical fan of The Wire who cannot miss an opportunity to talk about how great The Wire is (because it is), it’s only right to pay tribute to the great Michael K Williams upon his passing. Legitimately one of the finest actors of his generation. But don’t let me explain it, let his co-star from The Wire Wendell Pierce (aka Bunk Moreland) explain it on a red carpet a few years back with MKW right there next to him. This clip has been living in my head non-stop since I saw it, such a beautiful example of letting a person know what they mean to you while they’re around to hear it. Tell someone you appreciate them today. Have a lovely weekend, amigos.