Safe Victories
Safe Victories
White Ferns T20 mode, Flying Kiwis transfer season, domestic cricket prospect ranks, U19s Women's footy & more
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Aotearoa Warriors Diary: Rainy Roosters & Rabbitohs (Rugby League)
Aotearoa Warriors Diary: Hopefully Bouncing Back vs Eels (Rugby League)
After All That... Darren Bazeley Is The New All Whites Head Coach (Football)
The Football Ferns Have Named Their Squad For The 2023 FIFA World Cup (Football)
Flying Kiwis – July 5 (Football)
The Quotable Steven Adams: 2022-23 Edition (Basketball)
Recapping Tall Ferns Exploits at the 2023 Asia Cup (Basketball)
White Ferns Stumble In ODI Series Loss vs Sri Lanka (Cricket)
27fm Album Jukebox – June 2023 (Music)
Scotty’s Word
White Ferns enter T20 mode for three T20Is against Sri Lanka starting Saturday afternoon. Their 13-23 record in ODI cricket since January 1st 2020, flips to 20-16 in T20I cricket and after losing the ODI series to Sri Lanka there is hope that White Ferns bounce back in their strongest format.
White Ferns also defeated Sri Lanka by 102 runs at the T20 World Cup earlier this year. Along with Sri Lanka playing in home conditions, that performance is balanced by being rolled for 76 by Australia and 67 by South Africa to start their T20WC campaign. Sri Lanka have the best player of the tour so far in Chamari Athapaththu who had scores of 108* and 140* (248 runs @ 151sr).
Athapaththu scored 103 runs @ 34avg/132sr in a T20I series against Bangadesh a few months ago, which was also played in Sri Lanka. Prior to that she was the leading run-scorer at the Fairbreaks T20 Invitational scoring 281 runs @ 46.8avg/137sr.
Here are some White Ferns efficiency stats for T20I cricket since Jan 1st 2022...
Batting Strike-Rates
Bernadine Bezuidenthot: 155.17
Lea Tahuhu: 127.27
Maddy Green: 120.94
Amelia Kerr: 110.83
Sophie Devine: 108.22
Suzie Bates: 106.48
Hannah Rowe: 98
Brooke Halliday: 90.38
Izzy Gaze: 89.7
Georgia Plimmer: 80.5
Bowling Strike-Rates
Suzie Bates: 12
Rosemary Mair: 12
Eden Carson: 12.7
Lea Tahuhu: 14.7
Sophie Devine: 15
Hannah Rowe: 16
Amelia Kerr: 21.1
Fran Jonas: 21.3
The first round of domestic cricket contracts dropped this week. This sparked a ranking festival which flowed in Kiwi-NRL rankings as well. First are the best emerging batters. My first draft didn't have Canterbury's Rhys Mariu because I was building the rankings off the contracted player list and Mariu didn't feature there. With a First-Class average of 57.86 after four games, Mariu will probably get a contract in the second announcement and his early mahi is on par with Mitch Hay and Muhammad Abbas who we discussed in our latest podcast.
Dean Foxcroft - Otago
Katene Clarke - ND
Josh Clarkson - CD
Will O'Donnell - Auckland
Troy Johnson - Wellington
Mitch Hay - Canterbury
Dale Phillips - Otago
Thorn Parkes - Otago
Muhammad Abbas - Wellington
Rhys Mariu - Canterbury
Same for the bowlers which includes seamers and spinners...
Brett Randell - CD
Will O'Rourke - Canterbury
Adithya Ashok - Auckland
Kristian Clarke - ND
Tim Pringle - ND
Zak Foulkes - Canterbury
Ray Toole - CD
Fraser Sheat - Canterbury
Matthew Fisher - ND
Zak Gibson - ND
Let's apply this to Kiwi-NRL youngsters and I've stretched it out to 20 lads...
Matthew Timoko (Otahuhu - Raiders)
Jordan Riki (Hornby - Broncos)
Griffine Neame (Greymouth - Cowboys)
Leo Thompson (Napier - Knights)
Naufahu Whyte (Bay Roskill - Roosters)
Rocco Berry (Greytown - Warriors )
Wiremu Greig (Whangarei - Eels)
Connelly Lemuelu (Otara - Dolphins)
Tom Ale (Bay Roskill - Warriors)
Starford To'a (Mt Wellington - Tigers)
Ata Mariota (Manurewa - Raiders)
Hayze Perham (Rotorua - Bulldogs)
Will Warbrick (Kawerau - Storm)
Valynce Te Whare (Otara - Dolphins)
Alec MacDonald (Auckland - Storm)
Xavier Willison (Waikato - Broncos)
Siua Wong (Auckland - Roosters)
Deine Mariner (Marist -Broncos)
Keano Kini (Northcote - Titans)
Demitric Sifakula (Otahuhu - Warriors)
NZ Warriors have a double-banger against Parramatta Eels with NRL and NSW Cup games on Saturday. Below are the number of games played by Warriors youngsters in NSW Cup with players eligible for Under 19 SG Ball listed as SGB...
Isaiah Vagana: 16
Moala Graham-Taufa: 16
Zyon Maiu'u: 16
Ali Leiataua: 13
Leka Halasima: 12 (SGB)
Viliami Vailea: 11
Paul Roache: 10
Sanele Aukusitino: 10
Demitric Sifakula: 9
Jacob Laban: 8 (SGB)
Solomon Vasuvulagi: 6
Tanner Stowers-Smith: 4 (SGB)
Etuate Fukofuka: 2 (SGB)
Musical jam…
Wildcard’s Notebook
Flying Kiwis Transfer Season is absolutely churning. Had to wait until the start of the month for contracts to officially expire and deals to become official, now here we are and it’s all happening at once. What a time. Won’t say it’s the best time of the year because transfers are nice and exciting but it’s what happens after the transfer that matters and the best part of the kiwi football beat is always the goals scored/assisted and the trophies/achievements by these players on the pitch. But transfers are an important step to get to that place and we seem to have hit a point a few windows ago where large quantities of funky kiwi moves is now the norm.
Curiously we’ve not seen much from the women yet. Heaps of re-signings but no particular transfers of note which probably has a lot to do with the World Cup. Would imagine those ones are on hold until after the main event. Still, we have seen Ali Riley (Angel City) and CJ Bott (Leicester City) both sign new deals in the past ten days. Both two-year extensions as well.
Bott was the only one of the four kiwis in the WSL last season whose fate was up in the air with Ria Percival (Tottenham) having signed a new deal during her injury while Anna Leat (Aston Villa) and Rebekah Stott (Brighton) signed two-year deals a year ago. Bott’s status wasn’t clear, however she wasn’t listed on the club’s release list which suggested that either she was already contracted or that a new one was on the table. Turned out to be the latter. Now that’s all sorted. Question now is whether we can sneak any more NZers into the WSL. Claudia Bunge was linked with a move a year ago - she’s probably the one to keep the closest eye upon.
Just on Anna Leat also, there’s been lots of buzz about Hannah Hampton’s impending departure. That’s now been made official as the England backup has joined Chelsea to confirm all the rumours. Except that while that saga was going on Aston Villa went and signed Daphne van Domselaar from FC Twente on a three-year deal. DVD is the Dutch number one and, like Leat, will be at the 2023 World Cup. She’s one year older than Leat and apparently turned down some much bigger clubs in order to join Villa, presumably for better playing opportunities. So yeah instead of getting a crack at the number one status Leat’s now in a worse position than she was last year. But that’s how these things go. Just gotta stay ready and take the opportunities as they come – which Leat has done her whole career.
Liberato Cacace is also hanging back to see how the transfer window blossoms around him. Italian left back Fabiano Parisi is now considered one of the top prospects in the country after his breakout season which kept Cacace mostly on the bench at Empoli. Parisi’s agent has said for more than six months that the bloke is leaving this window. He’s been linked with most top Italian clubs although it’s Juventus who really seem to be trying to push that through. Juve may have to wait until they can sell some blokes first though given their delicate situation. The Empoli president recently said that not only was Parisi staying but that he’ll be captain next season (odd one since Filippo Bandinelli hasn’t gone anywhere)... that’s surely just negotiating bluster though. Parisi’s gonna be a Juventus player soon enough, it seems, and with that Cacace should get his chance in the First XI.
Notable Flying Kiwis Transfers:
Chris Wood to Nottingham Forest on a permanent deal (£15m), following his initial loan move
Marko Stamenic to Crvena Zvezda on a free transfer (from FC Copenhagen)
Matt Garbett to NAC Breda for an undisclosed fee, following his initial loan move
Henry Gray to Ipswich Town as a free agent
George Stanger to Ayr United on a free transfer (from Alloa Athletic)
Will Gillingham to Cove Rangers as a free agent
Max Crocombe to Burton Albion on a free transfer (from Grimsby Town)
Callum McCowatt to Silkeborg for an undisclosed fee (from FC Helsingor)
Sarpreet Singh to Hansa Rostock for an undisclosed fee (from Bayern Munich)
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Another one for ya, it appears that Marley Leuluai has joined Burnley’s U18s team… at least according to Transfermarkt. His IG profile has had Burnley tagged for a few weeks too. They’re not about to announce a youth team signing so this is as close as we’ll get to full confirmation prior to the season.
Leuluai captained the NZ U17s during their qualifying stuff through Oceania last year (although he got injured during the tournament) and will likely do the same at the U17 World Cup in November. He’s a strong central defender, son of Kylie Leuluai from the esteemed Aoteaora rugby league whanau, who had been working his way up at Manchester City. Like so many youth prospects he didn’t quite make the cut for their latest round of scholarship deals (which are pre-professional) so he left and had trials with Rangers and Stoke, and potentially others that we never heard about, before joining Burnley.
Burnley just got promoted back to the Premier League so while Leuluai is a long way away from first team activities this is clearly a great move. Lots of Manchester City links to Burnley since Vincent Kompany took over as manager – including several younger players making this same switch (Burnley are currently trying to sign City academy keeper James Trafford for big bucks). Plus Burnley is right up the road from Manchester so Leuluai isn’t having to move away from home at 16 years old.
I’m also curious to see whether Matt Dibley-Dias features at all for Fulham in their preseason stuff after getting into a couple matchday squads late last season. Fulham are off to America soon for a few games against other Premier League clubs. There’s a possibility he sneaks into that travelling squad but we’ll just have to wait and see.
Remember when the Tall Blacks were drawn up against USA in the upcoming FIBA World Cup? Well the Americans have named their 12-man squad and, frankly, it’s nowhere near as daunting as it could have been...
They do have Defensive Player of the Year Jaren Jackson Jr onboard. Pity we won’t get to see him up against his Memphis Grizzlies teammate Steven Adams. Rookie of the Year Paolo Bachero (and fellow nominee Walker Kessler) is also included. There are two players, Mikal Bridges & Cam Johnson, who play for Sean Marks’ Brooklyn Nets. We shouldn’t be short of good scouting here.
But there ain’t exactly a stack of all-stars on board. Only four out of twelve have known that honour: Anthony Edwards, Tyrese Haliburton, Jaren Jackson all made it for the first time last season while Brandon Ingram was an All Star for the only time (so far) in 2020 – the year before he was teammates with Steve-o in New Orleans. Of course these dudes are all excellent NBA players and picking from below the superstar class may actually end up with a much more cohesive team... but it’s a boost for the Tall Blacks all the same. And, wider picture, a squad that is by no means a safe bet to win the tournament.
Also a boost: Giannis Antetokounmpo is probably not going to be playing for fellow group-opponents Greece as he has some clean-up surgery on his knee. Take the Greek Freak out of that team and they’re also a lot less daunting. Jordan are the other team in the group, whom New Zealand beat in the third-fourth playoff at the Asia Cup last year with what was basically a development squad.
Another win for the Women’s U19s as they continue to storm through the Oceania Championship. They beat the Cook Islands 5-0 in their semi-final, not quite as emphatic as the 19-0 win over Papua New Guinea in the quarters but enough to take their tournament aggregate up to 38 goals scored and zero conceded after four games.
Again Leon Birnie made changes. This time the central defenders, who’ve been the most used players, split duties with one half each. Marie Green started and Ella McMillan spelled her at the break. It was also the first time we’ve seen both Emma Pijnenburg and Helena Errington starting – in fact those two creative midfielders had only played about thirty minutes together across all three previous games. Some of this required defensive sacrifices with fullback Rebekah Trewhitt doing a job at CB while Manaia Elliott dropped back to the right side of defence. Luckily she’s equally adept at RB or RW (and probably shapes more as a fullback down the line if she makes it to the pro ranks).
Those changes were all about keeping players fresh over a tough tournament. Results have been a cruise so far but the conditions certainly ain’t. Even in winter the weather can be rough, while the pitch conditions are usually in an absolute state by this stage and based on the bobbles of the ball yeah that seems to be the case here again.
The game against the Cooks was not particularly memorable. NZ missed several big chances while the Cook Islands goalie got player of the day on the back of a few sharo saves. There was also a concern as Alexis Cook left the pitch injured late first half, which looked like it could be serious. Fingers crossed it isn’t.
Which isn’t to say that there wasn’t some good footy. Just that there was also plenty of sloppiness and fatigue. But most importantly there was a safe victory and with that they’re just one more win away from booking their place at the 2024 U20 World Cup. Hosts Fiji beat Samoa 3-1 in the other semi-final to the tournament decider, on Saturday night at 7pm, will be a rematch of the first game of the champs for New Zealand. It was a 3-0 win on that day, not a very convincing performance yet they’ve been much better since.
NZ 5-0 Cook Islands (Semi-Final)
Starting XI (4-2-3-1): Aimee Feinberg-Danieli | Manaia Elliott, Rebekah Trewhitt, Marie Green, Zoe McMeeken | Charlotte Mortlock, Helena Errington (c) | Alexis Cook, Emma Pijnenburg, Lara Colpi | Ella McCann
Subs Used: Zoe Benson (Cook 41’), Ella McMillan (Green HT), Ruby Nathan (McCann 66’), Kiara Bercelli (Pijnenburg 66’), Danielle Canham (Errington 66’)
Goals: Own Goal (22’), Pijnenburg (26’), Colpi (45’), Nathan (70’), Bercelli (87’)