Semi-Final Suburbs
Blackcaps in T20 WC semis, Wellington Phoenix under Greenie, White Ferns vs Zimbabwe, Tall Blacks WCQs, Dylan Brown/NRL, and more
Scotty’s Word
Blackcaps are in the T20 World Cup semi-finals. The cricketing planets aligned for New Zealand to sneak into the semis despite their loss to England and it means that the Blackcaps return to T20WC semi-finals after missing that mark in 2024. Prior to that tournament the Blackcaps made the semi-finals stage in three consecutive T20WC and so have now hit this checkpoint in four of the last five tournaments.
Blackcaps have also made the semi-finals in five consecutive ODI World Cups. Add in the Champions Trophy early in 2025 and that’s six one-day tournaments in a row making the semis, while making the final in three of the last four one-day tournaments. Blackcaps have also finished top-four in two of the three World Test Championships. All of that comes together for New Zealand being a top-four men’s cricket nation in the world.
Coach Rob Walter has hit positive markers in all three formats. A return to T20WC semi-finals came after a T20 tri-series win in Africa early in his tenure. The ODI series win in India reflects how good the ODI group has been for a long time and they were tracking nicely before the tour of India under coach Walter.
The Test series win vs West Indies would have been solid regardless, but the way the group responded to the seam depth being challenged made it much cooler. Coach Walter has worked with at least 30 players already in the Blackcaps environment and now he has gathered the T20 lads to return to their semi-final suburb.
White Ferns cruised to a series win vs Zimbabwe as they should. I want New Zealand Cricket to take responsibility for helping emerging nations play more games and, along with good vibes, they offer opportunities to the younger kiwis who need to gather international experience before stepping up to play Australia for example.
Someone who is showing growth after time at this level is Izzy Gaze. Gaze wasn’t dismissed in this series and scored 189 runs @ 152sr. She also wasn’t dismissed in her only other game under skipper Melie Kerr and has 240 runs @ 158sr under the new leader.
Gaze scored with strike-rates lower than 90 in her first two years of T20I batting and the next two are over 100sr. Her first 50+ knock was in her third year and this stuff aligns with her Super Smash career.
Gaze has played six seasons of Super Smash and her last two are her only with 100+ runs and averages over 15. She scored her first Super Smash 50+ score this season and finished with three fifties.
Thanks to her development and her mahi vs Zim, Gaze joins three other White Ferns who have scored 100+ T20I runs with averages over 25. The other three are Melie Kerr, Suzie Bates and Sophie Devine. Gaze has the highest strike-rate of this group (123.4) and the only other player over 120sr is Devine (120.38).
Gaze should be able to gather a few scores against better opposition and boost her confidence even further. She was dominant against Zimbabwe and that’s a nice gauge of her development as an aggressive hitter for Aotearoa.
Meanwhile the opening day of a fresh Plunket Shield round featured the following knocks from younger batters...
Auckland
Wellington
Otago
For paid subscribers
Blackcaps stats
More info for the emerging batters in Plunket Shield
White Ferns stats and deep cuts
Three favourite NZ Warriors U19 players
NSWRL U19 try-scorers
Knights won with three of their four spine players possibly in the NZ Kiwis mix. That’s if Kalyn Ponga chooses to represent Aotearoa with the State of Origin eligibility rule tweak, while Dylan Brown’s a starting half for Kiwis and Phoenix Crossland snapped up his opportunity to play hooker in recent years.
One thing that stood out for Brown in his first game for Knights was his kicking mahi. Brown averaged 100+ kick metres per game in three of his seven seasons, including his second and third seasons. Brown averaged less than 130km/game in all seven years with Eels.
Brown had 8 kicks - 264m for Knights. Same number of kicks as Ponga and only two fewer than Jake Clifford who did most of the kicking for Cowboys.
Brown debuted at 18-years-old because of his ability to do the basics extremely well. He stayed as an NRL half and became a starting half for Aotearoa because he kept doing the halves fundamentals well. Kicking is the most obvious area for growth and Brown showcased all his skills vs Cowboys. As we saw in the Pacific Championships last year, Brown is just as important for NZ Kiwis as Jahrome Hughes.
Musical jam…
Nick’s Notebook
The Tall Blacks did what they needed to do over the weekend by beating both The Philippines and Guam to stay on course for World Cup qualifying progression. They’d had two very narrow defeats vs Australia late last year to begin this phase so needed to bank some wins here... and they did. Away to Philippines in Pasay was by far the trickier of the two – we actually lost away to Philippines during the last Asia Cup qualifying run but this time grabbed a 69-66 victory, holding them off in the fourth quarter thanks to a very balanced display that saw 12 different players used, 11 different players score points, with nobody scoring more than 11 points (Max Darling).
There was then a raft of changes to the squad for the Guam game in which the Tall Blacks cruised to a 99-67 victory. Jackson Ball, Jack Andrew, Sam Timmins, and Kruz Perrot-Hunt all came into the mix to allow some of the busier fellas their rest. Andrew led the way with 20 points while Reuben Te Rangi added 15p and Keanu Rasmussen a tidy 14p.
Two wins from two and we’ll face both Philippines and Guam back in Aotearoa in July to wrap things up. Progress to the next round is already confirmed, that next round being two groups of six with the top three in each group, plus the best of the two fourth-placed teams, qualifying for the FIBA World Cup in 2027 to be hosted in Qatar. Funny how Qatar seem to always be hosting major sporting events.
Keanu Rasmussen made his NZ debut in this window – Aussie born but with some kiwi parentage, he’s a development player for Adelaide who you might remember from when he played for Hawke’s Bay in the NZ league two seasons ago. Yanni Wetzell and Jordan Ngatai were the only players from outside the NBL involved in the first game... and of those NBL players, only Rasmussen plays for a team that made the playoffs (and he’s a DP who got 55 mins all season). Timmins and KPH did add to that non-NBL group in the second game, though. Wetzell and Ngatai have been in Japan but Timmins and KPH seem to just be in their offseasons from the NZ league (but both have played professionally overseas in the past).
Minutes by Tall Blacks vs Philippines | Guam
Reuben Te Rangi – 23:06 | 24:13
Carlin Davison – 13:01 | DNP
Jackson Ball – DNP | 10:40
Taylor Britt – 25:11 | 27:13
Taine Murray - 15:30 | 17:35
Alex McNaught – 14:48 | 9:30
Sam Mennenga – 29:52 | DNP
Yanni Wetzell – 06:31 | DNP
Max Darling – 13:48 | 16:23
Tohi Smith-Milner – 11:53 | DNP
Jordan Ngatai – 26:57 | 26:36
Keanu Rasmussen – 1:28 | 20:13
Jack Andrew – DNP | 22:24
Sam Timmins – DNP | 13:55
Tyrell Harrison – 17:56 | DNP
Kruz Perrott-Hunt – DNP | 11:18
For paid subscribers
Giancarlo Italiano’s youth player record
Jesse Randall’s season in context
Ben Old’s new left-back idol
Gotta be honest, I didn’t see anything from the Chris Greenacre Wellington Phoenix that was very different from the Giancarlo Italiano Wellington Phoenix. The only change he made from the derby defeat was an enforced one with Corban Piper starting up top in place of the suspended Ifeanyi Eze. Greenie was pretty reasonable about that afterwards, saying his idea was that players deserved the right of reply after their poor efforts against Auckland FC, suggesting also that he felt this was the strongest available eleven (as Chiefy also clearly thought given that he picked them all for the derby).
But the formation was the same (maybe a slight tweak with the front three being flatter, though that’s possibly more about how Piper plays, dropping in rather than running in behind like Eze, than a direct tactical tweak. It was still the back three with wing-backs. Players were all in the same positions. Despite Greenacre talking about his lads having left everything out there, they didn’t make very many inroads against Sydney FC, held scoreless for only the third time this season. They even had a penalty taken off them by a questionable VAR intervention as had happened a few other times recently under the last coach. Plus they lied on the teamsheet like always. If you’ve just spent a week in the bush and tuned in without knowing that Giancarlo Italiano had been sacked, you would never have guessed in.
Despite Greenacre talking about having worked on ball speed at training, that wasn’t any different either – although Ramy Najjarine seemed to have a little more freedom with some tricks and flicks, wish we’d seen more of that from him throughout the season because it added a bit of spice to an otherwise bland attack.
The only notable changes were on the bench with Luke Brooke-Smith recalled and finding himself as the first man subbed on, while Dan Edwards reappeared after a long time out. But even subbing on Nicola Mileusnic and Lukas Kelly-Heald with ten to go and down by a goal... that felt exactly like what Chief would have done. And let’s not ignore the individual error that cost them the decisive goal as Manjrekar James rushed out of the line to guard against a cut-back, which should have been someone else’s job anyway, leaving way too early and allowing a simple square pass behind him for an easy finish at close range.
Yet the thing is... Italiano was sacked because of his derby results. His non-derby results were 5w-5d-5l with -2 goal difference and that’s hardly sackable material. It was the embarrassments of the derbies, and the way the team’s mentality crumbled under that pressure, that cost him his job. In terms of playing style, they never got where they were trying get to but that wasn’t the problem (at least not the main problem). It might even be that Greenacre doesn’t see the need to change too much, believing instead that the team is only a few small tweaks (and a whole lot of confidence) away from being competitive again.
Having said that, I’m increasingly sceptical of whether they’ve signed the right players for that system… or whether players are being used in the right ways. Carlo Armiento doesn’t have the workrate to be a wing-back and having him deeper takes away from his best elements. The backline doesn’t have the pace to play high and even since they’ve eased up on that there are still issues in how they don’t expand in possession and they’re all kind of the same player defensively. Matt Sheridan at RWB doesn’t offer enough going forward. Corban Piper can’t finish as a striker. If Greenie really wanted to draw a line in the sand like he keeps saying, he could have rolled out a 4-2-3-1 shape that puts more of these dudes in their best positions. Something like this…
Oluwayemi; Sheridan, Tuiloma, Hughes, Kelly-Heald; Rufer, Retre; Armiento, Nagasawa, Najjarine; Piper
Which, as other players return to fitness/availability, could eventually look like this...
Oluwayemi; Payne, Tuiloma, Hughes, Kelly-Heald; Rufer, Nagasawa; Armiento, Singh, Najjarine, Eze
Even after losing to Sydney FC at home and dropping to last place, they’re still only five points outside of the six and you can’t throw away the whole season eight games out when a three-game winning streak could change everything. Gotta play it out to the end. But if results don’t improve then there’s going to come a time when Greenacre has to look at this squad and prioritise the players who’ll be returning next season at the expense of those who won’t. Right now, that list is all locals. None of the imports/Aussies are contracted for 2026-27. Some off-contract players who are under pressure...
Manjrekar James – Good player but not a good fit. Bringing him in to play a high line was messy and he keeps making big mistakes. His distribution was a shambles against Sydney with multiple long balls to nobody... and as mentioned he’s a similar type of bruising CB to Tuiloma and Hughes who are playing better than him right now. Tuiloma kinda made him redundant by taking over as the ball-player at the back. If they switch to a back four at any stage he should be the one to miss out. Even if they don’t, he might find himself on the outer to Matt Sheridan’s benefit when Tim Payne returns at RWB. This isn’t about writing James off because he’s probably leaving... it’s about him not commanding selection ahead of others already there.
Josh Oluwayemi – Greenacre hyped up his “steel” and “character” for how he bounced back against Sydney. And yeah he was pretty good, making a couple nice saves with zero howlers. He’s (marginally) the best of the three keepers that the Nix have used this season... but is he the best fit? Alby Kelly-Heald is much more reliable with his feet and more comfortable sweeping outside his area. It’s one to ponder. Olu’s under less pressure now than he was last week, at least.
Carlo Armiento – Like I said, I just don’t think he has the workrate to be a wing-back. That stat that I quoted in Thursday’s email which shows him among the worst-ranked wide defenders in the A-League for sprints per game, quick passes, and overlaps – and literally the worst for Peak Speed Velocity – summarises the issue comprehensively enough. He doesn’t run beyond defenders and he doesn’t track back. There’s no burst from the width, something they only ever get when Tim Payne is at RWB. His best attribute is his rocket of a shot but he didn’t even register an attempt against Sydney. He needs to play higher up or not at all.
Alex Rufer – You know, Paolo Retre and Kazuki Nagasawa played quite well on Sunday. That puts pressure on the captain because a team that is emphasising ball speed might not be a team into which Alex Rufer fits as smoothly. No shade on his abilities but there is a case that they might want the passing slickness of the other two midfielders ahead of Roof’s defensive presence. He’s suspended next week for yellow accumulation so we’ll get a look at it without him... not that they played very well in the last game he missed (3-2 loss to Melbourne Victory a month ago).
Sander Kartum – Didn’t even get off the bench against Sydney despite his team being 1-0 down and chasing a goal. Only here on loan and hasn’t really settled yet. It’s not looking super promising for this bloke. That was with no Sarpreet Singh or Ifeanyi Eze either – the attacking logjam is only going to get worse if/when those fellas are back in contention.
Musical Jam...
