Simple Geometry
Wellington Phoenix women, Super Smash cricket, NZ U19s cricket, David Nyika, Flying Kiwis Transfer Tracker & more
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Flying Kiwis – January 7 (Football)
Steven Adams Is Getting Back To His Old Self Again After A Slow And Steady NBA Revival (Basketball)
The Steven Adams NBA Comeback Tour With The Houston Rockets Has Commenced (Basketball)
This New Zealand Breakers Season Is Capitulating Before Our Very Eyes (Basketball)
2024/25 Super Smash Scout: Jess Watkin & Tom Bruce Mana, Rohit Gulati Emerges (Cricket)
2024/25 Super Smash Scout: Whanau Affair (Kerr/McKenzie/Boyle) & Bevon Jacobs (Cricket)
2024/25 New Zealand vs Sri Lanka T20I/ODI Notebook (Cricket)
An Optimistic Perspective About The New Zealand Warriors Future Without Tohu Harris (Rugby League)
Scotty’s Word
Best Super Smash situations...
Wellington at Basin Reserve in Wellington
Otago at Molyneux Park in Alexandra
Central Districts at Saxton Oval in Nelson
Wellington loves Super Smash. Biggest crowds, best atmosphere. If you’re luck, you might get a spot sitting next to the Kerr whanau/friends. Only got a week or so in Alexandra but it’s lovely and well supported. Curious about CD in Palmerston North coming up but Nelson is one of the best sneaky kiwi cricket spots.
Super Smash commentary...
Best trio offered: Katey Martin, Francis Mackay, Hamish Rutherford
Favourite duo: Katey Martin, Francis Mackay
Funniest trio: Katey Martin, Grant Elliott, Mark Richardson
Ideal kiwi cricket commentary team: Katey Martin, Francis Mackay, Hamish Rutherford, Grant Elliott, Mark Richardson, Aimee Watkins, Ben Horne
I’d happily listen to an all female crew of Martin, Mackay, Watkins. Rutherford and Horne have been lovely additions. Rutherford works well with the South Island ladies, Horne is sharp and insightful. Martin vs Elliott/Richardson is always a giggle.
Boyle bros take over (before Canterbury vs Auckland)...
Jack Boyle - 28yrs
Super Smash: 162 runs @ 40.5avg/148.6sr (1st)
FC: 23.1avg/39.9sr
LA: 36.8avg/73sr
T20: 23.9avg/115.7sr
Matt Boyle - 21yrs
Super Smash: 136 runs @ 68avg/160sr (4th)
FC: 29.6avg/58.6sr
LA: 16.6avg/71sr
T20: 28.4avg/138.1sr
Jess Kerr continues to dominate domestic cricket and I had to remind myself that she didn’t play at the T20 World Cup or in the Rose Bowl. Kerr is the best hitter in women’s cricket right now but her T20I bowling wasn’t quite good enough to demand a T20WC spot and White Ferns won. The Kerr sisters were the only White Ferns with 10+ ODI wickets last year year and J-Kerr was the only batter with 40+ runs/100+ strike-rate, which wasn’t good enough to get a Rose Bowl game.
Super Smash
Batting: 142 runs @ 71avg/137.8sr
Bowling: 7w @ 10avg/5.8rpo
Only batter with two 50s, most wickets for seamers
2024 T20Is
Batting: 86 runs @ 17.2avg/126.4sr
Bowling: 2w @ 115.5avg/7rpo
2024 ODIs
Batting: 49 runs @ 9.8avg/106.5sr
Bowling: 12w @ 24.5avg/5rpo
Will Clark (23yrs) continues to impress with Central Districts. Clark hit 23* @ 192sr to steer CD to victory vs Wellington and he has quietly gathered impressive stats across all three formats.
Super Smash: 69 runs @ 34.5avg/156.8sr | 3w @ 25avg/10.7rpo
FC: 42.4avg/61sr | 35avg/3.8rpo
LA: 39.7avg/94sr | 30.4avg/6.5rpo
T20: 26.2avg/120sr | 19.5avg/9.7rpo
CD also had Toby Findlay make his Super Smash debut as a seamer. Findlay looks similar to ND’s Matt Fisher but that may just be their style of pants, although Findlay’s pace and movement instantly impressed. Tom Blundell’s not in the best form right now but he is exceptional with short-pitch bowling and he was unable to deal with Findlay’s bouncers.
Findlay is 21-years-old and his debut comes after Mason Clarke gave me a similar impression in his first few Super Smash games for Otago as a 17-year-old. Do not doubt Aotearoa’s seam bowling depth as there are funky skills and styles simmering below the top-tier … after the funky skills/styles of Will O’Rourke, Ben Sears, Nathan Smith and Zak Foulkes have boosted Blackcaps bowling stocks.
Impressive seamers who you need to watch in Super Smash…
Brett Randell - 29yrs
Henry Shipley - 28yrs
Jock McKenzie - 23yrs
Will Clark - 23yrs
Muhammad Abbas - 21yrs
Toby Findlay - 21yrs
Mason Clarke - 17yrs
The NZ Under 19 women's squad was announced for the upcoming World Cup where I'll also be tracking Samoa. The NZC announcement zoned in on which players had contracts but who cares about contracts when more were actually playing domestic cricket…
Anika Tauwhare - Auckland
HBJ Shield: 6 runs @ 40sr | 4w @ 22avg/4.9rpo
Kate Irwin - Auckland
HBJ Shield: 2w @ 14avg/5.8rpo
Anika Todd - Auckland
HBJ Shield: 3 runs @ 3avg/25sr | 1w @ 36avg/6rpo
Natasha Wakelin - ND
HBJ Shield: 102 runs @ 17avg/68sr | 19ov @ 7rpo
Super Smash: 9 runs @ 64sr
Eve Wolland - ND
HBJ Shield: 66 runs @ 16avg/53sr | 1w @ 56avg/7rpo
Super Smash: 22 runs @ 22avg/76sr
Emma McLeod - CD
HBJ Shield: 207 runs @ 41avg/67sr | 2w @ 37avg/6.2rpo
Super Smash: 16 runs @ 8avg/67sr
Kate Chandler - Wellington
Super Smash: 10 runs @ 10avg/43sr
Hannah Francis - Wellington
HBJ Shield: 120 runs @ 20avg/45sr | 6w @ 11avg/3.4rpo
Louisa Kotkamp - Otago
HBJ Shield: 6w @ 15avg/4.3rpo
Musical jam…
Wildcard’s Notebook
The Wellington Phoenix women played last night, away to Western Sydney Wanders, and by gawd they were spectacular in winning 3-0. Wanderers did have their goalie sent off midway through the first half but even before that, the Nix had already hit the woodwork twice. Paul Temple spoke during the week about how he wants to see his team make better decisions in the attacking third and they definitely seemed to do that here, with a number of really excellent patterns on display. The finishing still has a way to go but against a vulnerable opponent, away from home, they dominated from the first minute onwards (although still might have been losing at one stage had Sophie Harding not missed an open goal).
The Nix had 44 shots overall and 15 of them were on target. Ten different players had shots on target. They kept 60% of possession despite always being in a hurry to create something whenever they had the ball. And they absolutely swarmed the Wanderers in the midfield, with Maya McCutcheon continuing her superb form with four tackles and a couple of interceptions while Olivia Fergusson and Alyssa Whinham really led from the front on the press. It was a fantastic performance across the board. The best that Grace Jale has played for the Nix. Lara Wall, Annalie Longo, Whinham, McCutcheon... they were outstanding too. Dominant stuff. They’re now up to fourth on the ladder with a game away in Adelaide on Sunday. Short turnaround will be tough but they’ll be buzzing after Thursday night.
One such pattern that we saw plenty of was this simple bit of geometry...
That’s midfielder Longo out wide, drifting to the wing in support. The actual winger, Mebae Tanaka, started infield and then ran towards Longo before straightening her run into the space created when the fullback closed out on AL. All the while, the fullback Alivia Kelly, rather than running an overlap, has tucked inside to give Longo the option of a square pass... so when Longo instead passes into the path of Tanaka, Kelly simply continues her run into the area.
We saw this plenty on the other side too with Wall, Jale, and Whinham. Because of the nature of those players, there was more overlapping variety there from Wall but that’s the beauty of it: this isn’t a set move, it’s just a starting shape full of variation. Sometimes Jale angled infield seeking a shot. Often the option was to push a pass all the way to Fergusson’s feet in the middle. Other times, Longo looked for a one-two that sent her running onto the ball at the byline. And best of all, they were patient about it. There was always that gentle infield pass so if it didn’t work the first time they could play a couple consolidating passes and then pounce if/when WSW lapsed with their marking (as happened many times in those wide areas).
Alyssa Whinham scored a brilliant goal from distance within eight seconds of the second half kicking off. Alivia Kelly followed up on a saved McCutcheon shot for the second goal. Emma Main came off the bench to score the third, making a perfectly timed run onto a magnificent ball over the top from Jale. A few weeks ago, Grace Jale was playing off the bench, looking like she wasn’t really sure how she fit into this team. Now she’s out there with energy and precision. The confidence is there. She’s settled on a left wing spot and is pulling strings beautifully. Incredible what a couple of well-struck goals can do for a player – suddenly she’s playing as well as she ever has. The 3-0 result flattered WSW. The Nix should probably have won by twice that margin… but we’ll settle for what we got: the club’s biggest ever away win.
In a contrasting state of affairs, David Nyika got absolutely wrecked by Jay Opetaia in his world cruiserweight title challenge. Nyika was knocked out in the fourth round and left visibly unconscious for a disturbing amount of time after he hit the canvas. They’d already taken him away with the medics when Opetaia got his fist raised by the referee as the victor.
Nyika fought a fascinating fight, not trying to ease into things but genuinely trying to get on the front foot and attack the champ. Unfortunately, that left him vulnerable the other way but Opetaia was full of praise for the attitude shown by a bloke who, glittering amateur career aside (and even then he was an Olympic bronze medallist, not an Olympic gold medallist), was extremely raw in the professional scene and took the fight on three weeks of notice.
That’s the thing to take from this. Nyika remains a huge prospect in the division (although the nature of this loss will be something he has to overcome in people’s minds) but he just wasn’t ready for it. In ten previous fights, all victories, he’d never gone past five rounds. In every other instance he’s been a comfortable victor with only Karim Maatalla managing to avoid a stoppage against him. Even after this fight, he’s still only done 31 rounds of professional boxing.
There are levels to this game and Nyika went from level one to level one hundred in one step. Went from scheduled wins against journeymen to taking on possibly the toughest hitter in the division. That change in intensity. That change in brutality. The demands on his power and fitness and speed and defence and accuracy... he was able to make mistakes and still cruise to wins in those other fights but here even minor slip-ups were emphatically punished.
But he knows the standard now. It’s not like there’s anything above this, Opetaia is a literal world champion. That’s the peak of cruiserweight boxing that he just experienced so if he didn’t know before then he sure knows now (as long as he can remember it). This was an opportunistic and risky bout and it went as bad as it could have gone but Nyika deserves some respect for being brave enough to go for it. Hopefully he learnt a few lessons in the process too.
Meanwhile, the focus now shifts to Nottingham (Chris Wood’s backyard) where Mea Motu will soon put her IBO World Super Bantamweight belt on the line against Ellie Scotney and her IBF, WBO & Ring Magazine titles in a unification effort. There have been a few kiwi world champs in the past. I wrote about this several years back when Joseph Parker was preparing to face Andy Ruiz for his title. Parker won to add his name to the list, while Mea Motu and Lani Daniels have since done the same. Bit of a golden era, you could say. Ah but none of them won unification bouts so Mea Motu’s aiming for something very special on January 26 NZT. Then, of course, there’s a Joseph Parker vs Daniel Dubois title fight in February too. We’re 0-1 so far but Nyika was by far the biggest outsider of the challenging trio.
On the podcast on Tuesday, we were going through Matt Henry’s Blackcaps record and I pondered how many other bowlers we’ve had in history who averaged under thirty in all three formats. I’ve since done the research to scratch that itch of curiosity and the answer is three.
PLAYER | TEST | ODI | T20
Matt Henry – 29.83 | 25.80 | 23.66
Trent Boult – 27.49 | 24.38 | 21.43
Shane Bond – 22.09 | 20.88 | 21.43
But you know what? Will O’Rourke is on pace to join them. I set the catchment limit at 10 wickets per format and WOR hasn’t reached those numbers yet in either ODI or T20... but he’ll get there soon and if he holds steady then the averages are on track. Obviously it means more to do this over a longer period of time so the fact that Trent Boult is so high up in the wicket-taking ranks of all of those formats while maintaining these averages is astonishing. But, yes, point being that Henry’s wicket-taking efficiency ranks up around the two greatest kiwi seam bowlers of the 21st century.
For what it’s worth, Sir Richard Hadlee took 158 ODI wickets at 21.56 and 431 Test wickets at 22.29 so if he’d been around for T20 cricket then he’d have no doubt been right up the top of those charts too. The only other NZ bowlers with averages sub-30 in Test and one other format are: Richard Collinge (Test & ODI), Ajaz Patel (Test & T20), Mark Gillespie (Test & T20)... and none of them would survive if the limit was raised to 20+ wickets in each format. There are a couple other crossovers between the white ball formats though (Kyle Mills, Mitch McClenaghan, Jacob Duffy).
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Flying Kiwis Transfer Tracker
There have been some curious whispers recently of Oskar van Hattum leaving the Wellington Phoenix to join Sligo Rovers in Ireland. Perhaps not what Nix fans want to hear at the moment – given there are also rumours linking Scott Wootton to Japan (specifically Cerezo Osaka where ex-Jets coach Arthur Papas is now in charge). OVH and Wootton are both into the last years of their contracts.
In his latest presser, Chiefy said outright that they’ve not had any offers for Wootton... but then also hinted that maybe there are discussions for the end of his contract, after this season – since the J-League will only be halfway through when the ALM ends. Italiano also said that the Nix are plotting an incoming transfer or two next week when the window opens. Speaking of J-League x A-League connections, it sounds like Thomas Deng and Jason Geria might be swapping places. We’ll see what happens with Deng and whether he ends up at Melbourne Victory or not but after he was released by Albirex Niigata, the club signed Jason Geria to replace him… and the reason these random Aussies are relevant is that they’re they past and future CB partners of kiwi Michael Fitzgerald who recently signed a new contract there. Another season of J-League for the 36yo from Tokoroa.
Back to the Nix, OVH would probably be an immediate departure. Which is fine. Wootton’s an ever-present leader at the back but Van Hattum has only played 146 minutes this season and wasn’t even in the squad for three recent games (quite possibly while a move away was being organised). Nor is he in the squad for this weekend. The coach has been prioritising guys like Luke Brooke-Smith, Nathan Walker, and Luke Supyk so might as well leave now and get a jump start on the next phase of his career. Sligo Rovers is a great spot. We’ve seen Ryan de Vries, Nando Pijnaker, and Max Mata excel there in recent years so they love themselves a kiwi baller. OVH is a slippery one though. In proper Phoenix adaptable fashion, he’s not really a striker, not really a winger, not really a number ten. He’ll probably have to specialise if he wants regular starts and Sligo should be a good level at which to do that.
Other Wellington Phoenix NZ players in the last year of their contract: Corban Piper (scholarship), Dublin Boon (scholarship), Sam Sutton, and Marco Rojas along with Van Hattum. Plus also non-NZers David Ball, Mo Al-Taay, and Stefan Colakovski along with Wootton. Most of the Nix women are on one-year deals so it’s not worth listing them. Over at Auckland FC, Alex Paulsen and Max Mata are only there on loan while Logan Rogerson and Tommy Smith are on single-year deals (along with a few of the imports and a couple of scholars/youth players).
On that note, Auckland FC have moved to replace Joey Champness by bringing in Aussie U23 winger Marlee Francois as a straight swap in the squad. Last featured for Bristol City U21s, though he’s now 22 years old. His older brother is Tyrese Francois who plays for Wigan Athletic in England’s League One... but has been injured most of the season. Marley seems to have some injury history too so we’ll see how that tracks. More of a depth signing than anything. Moving on.
Heading back over to Ireland, we seem to be closing in on a Moses Dyer to Galway United announcement. Seems he’ll have some Australasian company there because former Newcastle Jets winger Daniel Stynes is already training with the club. Dyer’s already popped up on the FAI registration app so you know it’s happening.
The Away From The Numbers podcast over in Canada recently had an interview with Tommy Wheeldon Jr, who is the head coach of Cavalry FC in the Canadian Premier League. Defending champs, no less. In it, Wheeldon suggested that Jay Herdman is in talks to return on a permanent basis after contributing positively on loan from Vancouver Whitecaps last year. Herdman’s been released by the Caps so he’s free to do whatever he wants and the lure of Concacaf Champions Cup is probably the main selling point there.
Wheeldon also spoke a bit about Myer Bevan’s situation at the club. Bevan had a contract that ran through until the end of 2025 but left early to return to Aotearoa after his wife gave birth to their second kid. Family reasons, as was stated at the time. Probably not earning enough in the CPL to justify raising a young family away from their support systems. The deal they ended up cutting allows him to play for Auckland City without any fuss but they do retain the right to a transfer fee if he signs professionally before the end of that previous Cavalry contract. Hard to see him doing that anywhere other than Auckland FC and they don’t need another striker... so expect to see him kitting up for Auckland City against Bayern Munich in six months.
Matt Dibley-Dias has had his Northampton Town loan cut short. It started with illness, it ended with injury, and he only played three times in between. Some conflicting things have been said there about whether it was his lack of physicality that kept him out of the squad or if he was genuinely injured during that time. Probably both, to some extent. Regardless, it wasn’t working so he’s gone back to Fulham. Gotta get his hamstring right first and once that’s done, maybe he gets another loan deal, who knows. Fitness is proving to be a pesky issue for him, unfortunately.
A couple of different self-proclaimed insiders have suggested lately that Chris Wood’s new contract with Nottingham Forest is nearly done. As soon as you heard the AC Milan rumours, you had to know they were getting close (and that his agent just wanted one last bit of bargaining power). Forest are also working on new deals for Ola Aina and Murillo so that will have kept the lawyers busy.
One more: Alex Greive has been announced as a San Antonio FC player. This is American USL Championship, with AG returning to the nation where he did his university education – a logical next step after diminishing returns in Scotland and Ireland. Should be a better fit for his style of play too. Less rugged, more fitness. Bit more room to operate in. Elliot Collier used to play for San Antonio, in fact he won a USL Championship title with them a couple years ago.
Musical Jam...