Pure Carnage
Pure Carnage
Israel Adesanya vs Aotearoa, Footy Ferns under Jitka Klimkova, Paige Hareb & kiwi surfing, plus heaps of NZ basketball goodness
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Podcast
Reading Menu
The Wahine Rugby League Takeover (Aotearoa vs Tonga Debrief) (Rugby League)
2022 Aotearoa Kiwis Mana (Aotearoa vs Tonga Debrief) (Rugby League)
Kosta Barbarouses Has Returned To The Wellington Phoenix (Again) (Football)
The Quotable Steven Adams: 2021-22 Edition (Basketball)
There Goes Another Disappointing Breakers Season (Basketball)
Celebrating The Irrepressible Exploits of Shea Ili In NBL22 (Basketball)
The Differing Fates of Junior Fa, Hemi Ahio & David Nyika at Kambosos vs Haney (Boxing)
Scotty’s Word
As we enter Israel Adesanya's UFC fight week, I've been pondering all things Adesanya. Well, pondering Adesanya and Aotearoa as this seems to be a complex pile of niggle. Last week Adesanya doubled-down on his idea that he won't fight in Aotearoa while at a press conference for City Kickboxing fighters in Australia. Meanwhile, I'm watching Aotearoa rugby league thrive in connection to fans with fixtures at Mt Smart coming a week after the Super Rugby final at Eden Park.
Both events celebrated fandom and connection to community. Recent Black Ferns games were taken around the northern regions of Aotearoa, NBL basketball is being played in front of hearty crowds all around Aotearoa. Expand this idea across all Aotearoa sports and while society feels like its crumbling, there is an underlying tone of a post-pandemic celebration of sporting fandom and connection to community.
I thoroughly enjoy Adesanya and have covered his rise up the UFC closely. Adesanya has always been too big for Aotearoa and this revolves around his online following (folks should get offline) where Adesanya can reach millions of people around the world. Adesanya's only rival is the All Blacks reputation around the world, some would argue that Adesanya is bigger than the All Blacks.
As someone who covers sport because mainstream media has done a horrible job at it, I find Adesanya's vibe a bit strange. Adesanya is going to punish fans in Aotearoa because mainstream media were pestering CKB or because the government made life difficult for CKB fighters? Most kiwis whinge and moan about mainstream media and government, so we're kinda all in the same boat as Adesanya ... but we get punished?
That idea then bumps into another idea of uncertainty around the popularity of UFC/MMA in Aotearoa. Previous UFC events in Aotearoa have been massive and kiwis seem to have decent knowledge of UFC as most kiwi sports fans can spin some kinda UFC yarn. When I write about Kiwi-UFC mahi there is little buzz though and UFC yarns are near the bottom of Niche Cache content for views.
There is little difference between a Carlos Ulberg preview yarn and an Adesanya yarn. This is all anecdotal and one would assume that covering a UFC champion such as Adesanya would result in far more engagement or traffic. That's not the case though, which doesn't impact my coverage as we tend not to chase views and just serve up the content, yet this has seen me fall back to ponder this deeply.
Perhaps this is why mainstream media cover Adesanya in niggly fashion as they will get more clicks from “Adesanya said this about NZ” headlines compared to stuff about Adesanya in the UFC?
I don't care about what Adesanya should or shouldn't do, I'm interested in the dynamic between him and Aotearoa. Adesanya seems to be a global superstar, but not an Aotearoa superstar. Now Adesanya is fighting the system in Aotearoa and that's a battle many of us know well, yet the losers seem to be the fans ... who are also fighting the system. Adesanya has been quick to tell the world about racism and bullying in Aotearoa, about mistreatment from mainstream media and government. Some people around the world only know what Adesanya tells them about Aotearoa.
In theory, that should bring Adesanya closer to fans and yet he seems to be distancing himself even further. Now we approach Israel Adesanya vs Jared Cannonier and this week will be full of Adesanya content, content that will include some of these ideas and narratives. Cannonier presents an intriguing challenge for Adesanya and I’ll preview that fight along with Brad Riddell and Genah Fabian fights during the week.
For now, ponder this Adesanya vs Aotearoa situation. Aotearoa hasn’t had many athletes with the global following of Adesanya which automatically makes this unique. At a time when Aotearoa rugby league basked in appreciation for Aotearoa and connection to community, among other kiwi sporting celebrations, Adesanya seems to be heading down a different route.
Carlos Ulberg did manage a win at UFC Fight Night yesterday, a first round KO. Ulberg landed a monster jab to set up the finishing flurry and this is exactly the world-class striking that has made CKB such a UFC force.
Lydia Ko stumbled in her last two rounds at the Women's PGA Championship to finished tied-46th. This is Ko's worst result of the year and only result worse than T25 which may have been caused by a stacked schedule during June. Flush the dunny and on to the next tournament in a couple of weeks.
Paige Hareb enjoyed a win at the Nias Pro in Indonesia on the WSL Women's Qualifying Series. Hareb has strung together solid results on the QS (3rd, 5th, 5th) prior to this win and this appears to be a level below the Challenger Series where Hareb is ranked 33rd after results of 33rd and 25th. The CS features surfers who have dropped down from the Championship Tour which sums up Hareb's WSL standing nicely; good results in QS, not quite good enough to be on the CT fringe though.
The best kiwi blokes on the CS are Billy Stairmand and Te Kehukehu Butler. Stairmand also has three strong results on the QS with 4th, 1st and 2nd, while Butler's last three QS results are 17th, 5th and 9th. These results don't count towards CS rankings though; Butler has two 37th finishes to be ranked 44th and Stairmand has two 25th finishes to be ranked 41st.
Raise your mana music…
Wildcard’s Notebook
Jitka Klimková’s Football Ferns
The 2-0 loss to Norway yesterday morning (read the write-up here) marked the tenth game for Jitka Klimková as coach of the Football Ferns. Of those 10 games they’ve lost eight with only one win. A goal difference of -15.
Not exactly fantastic though bear in mind that the Fernies have played some tough teams in that time. Two against the Olympic champs Canada. Once against USA. A couple each against strong South Korea and Australia sides. Norway are one of the better teams in Europe too.
Also that ten-game stretch actually holds up pretty well against the ten games prior to JK’s hiring.
10 games pre-Klimková: 0 W | 1 D | 9 L | 5 GF | 25 GA | -20 GD
10 games with Klimková: 1 W | 1 D | 8 L | 6 GF | 21 GA | -15 GD
That was against a similar level of opposition too, in fact they played Canada (twice), Norway, Australia, and USA all in that previous stretch as well.
Marginal but definite improvements in terms of results, but results aren’t really the full focus right now for this team. They’re building towards co-hosting the 2023 World Cup (a sporting event of a magnitude that I’m still not sure most of Aotearoa comprehends) and everything that happens prior to that is in service to that. Which ain’t to say that we should excuse ongoing defeats, and there’s a great chance for a win against Wales on Wednesday morning, simply that the defeats don’t tell the full story. This is a team eight months into a new coaching regime, trying to figure out ways to get beyond the same old hurdle of being too good for Oceania footy and not good enough for major tournaments.
That hurdle is increasingly less and less the case at youth level. The last U17s team that went to a World Cup finished third after all... and we’re beginning to see that team filter into the senior squad – Anna Leat and Gabi Rennie each have several caps already. Marisa van der Meer was in the Olympic squad. Mackenzie Barry got her maiden call-up for this tour. There’s another U17 World Cup later in the year which should be good. There’s also an U20 World Cup that’ll feature many of the Wellington Phoenix wahine from last season and after beating Australia recently there’s every chance that team can do something special.
Just a matter of translating that into the senior stuff, where the handicap of a smaller population, less money to spend, and fewer professional players is felt so much more. No simple fix there. But progress is being made, albeit slowly.
Anyway, through ten games in charge, these are the players whom Klimková has used in her starting line-ups...
10 – Katie Bowen
9 – Liv Chance
8 – Meikayla Moore, Ali Riley, Ria Percival, Betsy Hassett
7 – CJ Bott, Daisy Cleverley
6 – Hannah Wilkinson, Paige Satchell
5 – Claudia Bunge
4 – Vic Esson, Erin Nayler
3 – Jacqui Hand
2 – Anna Leat, Abby Erceg, Anna Green, Ava Collins, Gabi Rennie
1 – Rebekah Stott, Ashleigh Ward, Liz Anton, Malia Steinmetz, Annalie Longo, Rosie White, Emma Rolston
The couple two tours, the Ferns weren’t able to call upon Aus/NZ-based players due to border restrictions. So that’s four games that Satchell and Wilkinson missed, for example. Meaning they’ve started every one they’ve been available for. Claudia Bunge too. She’s been in the XI for each of the last five matches and is putting together a strong case to stay there even if Abby Erceg were available.
Ali Riley has missed two games with minor injuries, otherwise always starting. Ria Percival and CJ Bott had made every start for JK until their recent injuries. Liv Chance played off the bench for the third game of the SheBelieves Cup and has otherwise been everpresent (though doesn’t often seem to play ninety mins, annoyingly). Betsy Hassett broke her ribs at that tournament, causing her to miss the last game too, plus she had one match off the bench. Katie Bowen is the one player to have played all ten games... though she’s been used in several different positions.
The goalkeeping position is still being fiddled with. Anna Leat made two of the first three starts under JK but hasn’t been available in 2022 yet. Otherwise Vic Esson and Erin Nayler have been alternating... with Esson putting up the stronger case for the number one based on some sizzlingly good performances. Great again versus Norway on Sunday. Other than that it does seem that the first eleven is pretty well sorted, at least when everybody is fit and available... which in international football is kinda rare, tbf.
3x3 Basketball World Cup
Oh mate, absolute heartbreaker for the Tall Blacks 3x3 team over the weekend. I broke down the state of the two concurrent World Cups on Friday, since then the Tall Ferns were eliminated in pool play after going down to Brazil. Got a good win over Austria earlier in the day to stay in contention but then were beaten by a better team in the decisive final group match. So it goes.
For the Ferns, they simply didn’t have the shooting. Great hustle and defence in most of those games but hitting a combined 5/50 from beyond the arc for the tournament is kind of awful. Tiarna Clarke was the only one to make multiple twos but she took 22 attempts so... yeah. Even the one pointers weren’t flash: 33/67 as a team, worse than 50%. If they had a gun lead scorer in that team they could have made some real waves.
As for the blokes, get a load of this in their knockout game against the USA...
Trying to qualify for the quarter-finals and up against the defending champion nation and the win was right there for the taking up 20-17 with a few minutes remaining on the clock. These 3x3 games are 10 mins long although they also end if a team reaches 21 points so that was match point for the kiwis only for them to end up losing. A couple of turnovers at the worst time (absolutely insane clutch defence from the Americans though) combined with a difficult Dom Kelmon-Poto lay-up miss and the USA were able to make the next three buckets for the victory. The pain.
USA went on to get thrashed 21-11 by eventual runners-up Lithuania in the quarters. Serbia won the overall men’s competition while France won the women’s tournament. Both those champs had competitive wins over Aotearoa in the group stages.
Really impressive overall from the Tall Blacks though. The best ever by a New Zealand men’s team at a 3x3 World Cup and much of it was led by the excellence of Tai Wynyard. Once upon a time he was a highly touted recruit, hailed as the best kiwi prospect since Steven Adams when he signed with Kentucky. Injuries have spoiled his career and it’s taken some time for him to get the love of the game back. But he’s been superb for the Taranaki Airs in the NBL this term and seeing him look and move as sharp as he did at the 3x3 was amazing.
Wynyard had 6 blocks for the tournament, tied most overall with USA’s Khalil Iverson (whose sixth block was ironically off a Wynyard shot in that play-in game) despite playing one fewer match. He was the leading scorer for the NZers with 24 points, shooting 67% from 1-pt range. And that spin move that he was whipping out, mate, pure carnage.
The lads did have similar troubles shooting from distance to the girls, though Jayden Bezzant was a partial exception (5/14 2pters). They just couldn’t quite execute in those final stages against the Yanks. Bummer.
Down The Welly Nix Rabbit Hole
Quite hilarious yarns there from Nix old boy Michał Kopczyński talking about how preseason training in Wellington was like a military boot camp full of shouty coaches and physically gruelling exercises and all sorts. Apparently goalie Filip Kurto fainted more than once from it all. The tweet is a thread, have a peek if you want a laugh.
Kinda surreal hearing the Wellington Phoenix mentioned in that way but it’s pretty obvious what Kopa is getting at there. Even before the final tweet when he mentions: “The coach who arranged this all us later changed clubs. He took over an Australian team and took Kurto with him. Filip then told me: 'I'll sign the contract, but on one condition. This guy has no right to take me to the training ground anymore.”
Need I remind you that Kopczyński spent one season with the Nix and it was the Mark Rudan season? Gonna assume that Ufuk Talay has more of a well-rounded approach to fitness within his squad than the Rudeboy did.
Looking back at my notes from the Rudan season, I will say that team didn’t have a lot of injuries. At least not until the end of the term when a few knocks finally caught up with them (Dylan Fox, Louis Fenton, Tom Doyle). Not sure if that’s vindicating or not, actually. What they certainly did have was a heap of cards. Including four reds across the season – the last of which being Kopczyński himself who was marched for a second yellow in the elimination final loss to Melbourne Victory, his final game for the club.
That Mark Rudan season was an important one in the Nix’s evolution but the more that you hear about Rudan, the more it feels like that split actually happened at the perfect time. Got what we needed out of Rudan and his siege mentality attitude and then he bailed before things could get toxic. Replacing him with Ufuk Talay who’s since taken the club to the next level and then some.
More Aotearoa Basketball
Tauihi Basketball, aka the Women’s NBL, starts on Wednesday night. Five new teams in a complete revamp of the competition, making it a way more professional scene. Tall Ferns players throughout. Recent USA college standouts Krystal Leger-Walker and Akiene-Tera Reed are both kitting up for the Northern Kahu. Strong import calibre by the looks. Cannot wait.
Then on Thursday night there’s an actual international basketball game being held in this country as the Tall Blacks take on The Philippines in Auckland. Enticing looking team too, with a smooth mix of veteran excellence and emerging youngsters.
And then don’t forget the Men’s NBL either which is going nuts right now. The Auckland Tuatara lost star import Chris Johnson and have promptly lost four games in a row to sink from top spot to third with the surging Nelson Giants – with their fantastic home crowds and the new form player in the comp in Jarrod West – and Hawke’s Bay Hawks both edging them in the current standings. Emphasis on current. Because this thing changes fast.
Manawatu Jets had won three on the trot before getting blitzed by Taranaki on Saturday. Southland just got a great win over Canterbury. Those are the two bottom teams and at the two-thirds stage they’re still both very much in contention for the top six. Not sure I see it happening for either... but the point is they’re not out of it yet. There is only five wins difference between first and tenth. Outstanding sporting areas.
Glastonbury Lorde