Sporting Tentacles
Parker vs Chisora: The Rematch, Deine Mariner and Kiwi-NRL prospect watch & Ryan Thomas in the Europa League
Podcast
TNC Variety Show - Episode 32
The Niche Cast: Heading The Mafia
Reading Menu
Aotearoa Warriors Diary: Redcliffe Aihe In Finals Footy (NRL)
Flying Kiwis – September 14 (Football)
Sean Marks Has Quietly Had Yet Another Fantastic Offseason With The Brooklyn Nets (Basketball)
Blackcaps In Bangladesh: Finn Allen's Aotearoa's Best Slugger (Cricket)
White Ferns In England: T20I Series Wrap / ODI Preview (Cricket)
Joseph Parker’s Next Opponent Is His Last Opponent: Prepare for Parker vs Chisora II (Boxing)
Scotty’s Word
Deine Mariner…
My Kiwi-NRL journey has taken me deeper into the mangroves, where I’m now fairly on top of deep cut prospects. I merely interpret and regurgitate information that is out there in the universe. In documenting the Kiwi-NRL takeover I consider it my mahi to have my sport-loving tentacles extend to the typically murky river of Kiwi-NRL prospects.
You’ve been along for the ride. In previous email dispatches I have introduced Xavier Willison (Hamilton/Broncos) as a ka pai prospect and while I didn’t expect his debut this season, Willison joined Jordan Riki (Christchurch) and TC Robati (Wellington) in the young Broncos forward pack. Caius and Felix Fa’atili (Christchurch) are up next as Broncos prospects recruited from Aotearoa.
I shared how Jack Sandford (Chch) and Sione Moala (Auckland) were part of a champion Canberra Raiders SG Ball team (U19) this year. This was packaged alongside the Raiders NSW Cup team having numerous 1st 15 and league juniors from Aotearoa - I reckon Leo Thompson is the next major Raiders prospect.
The equivalent of SG Ball in Queensland is Mal Meninga Cup. Raiders won SG Ball and Tweed Heads won Mal Meninga Cup earlier this year with Broncos prospect Deine Mariner enjoying a fine campaign at centre. Marist Saints junior Mariner has recently been named in the Australian Schoolboys team and won the Langer Cup (schoolboy competition) with Palm Beach Currumbin.
That’s an epic year and such domination of a rugby league hot spot in south east Queensland has me definitely perked my antenna. This is as much about Mariner clearly being a high quality Kiwi-NRL prospect as it is about this falling in alignment with the wider Kiwi-NRL situation. The best way to lay this out is highlight Keano Kini who was there alongside Mariner in the Tweed Heads and PBC teams.
Kini is also a Marist Saints junior.
Kini is in the Titans systems though, Mariner is with Broncos.
This fits the Kiwi-NRL takeover idea as the best U18 club and schoolboy teams in Queensland had two high quality prospects recruited from Aotearoa.
This fits an idea I’m tracking about Marist Saints being the best low key grassroots Kiwi-NRL club. Sitili Tupouniua (Roosters) and David Fusitu’a (Warriors) are Marist juniors, Moala Graham-Taufa (Roosters) and twin brother Lani are Marist juniors. I reckon there are plenty more to come.
This fits the idea of Broncos and Titans being heavily invested in Kiwi-NRL recruitment, thus flipping south east Queensland into a Kiwi-NRL hot spot. Both clubs use local schools as part of their recruitment package, while Jordan Riki was an example of clubs being empathetic to the player’s needs as Riki stayed in Aotearoa until he finished school. Broncos are now a Kiwi-NRL force.
A Titans Kiwi-NRL deep dive is coming. They have more Kiwi-NRL prospects. than the Broncos and this will be evident in the coming years as they enter the NRL.
Mariner and Kini tell the Kiwi-NRL story. Two Marist Saints juniors playing for the same club and school team, recruited by different NRL clubs.
Let me do some mahi here and build out the Gold Coast Titans Kiwi-NRL prospect group…
Burleigh Bears U21s: Sam McIntyre (Waitemata), Vaka Sikahele, Isaac Matalavea-Booth (Manurewa), TJ Devery (Te Atatu), Te Ahurei Epapara (Pikiao).
Tweed Heads U18: Keani Kini (Marist).
Signed for 2021: Amarni Wetini-Ngaropo (Manurewa/Auckland Grammar 1st 15).
Wildcard’s Notebook
Continental Styles
One of the recurring email themes I’ve rolled out the last few months has been the continental competition endeavours of the various Flying Kiwis. Which started out with so much optimism but has ended up pretty much exactly where we normally are: with Ryan Thomas flying the flag alone.
Olivia Chance’s Celtic fell at the first hurdle in the club’s first ever European campaign. CJ Bott’s Vålerenga made it through to the second round but then fell 6-3 to Häcken of Sweden to miss out on the group stages. Neither of them started any of those games, although Botty did come off the bench and do this in the second leg in Sweden...
The Champions League is the only UEFA women’s competition even though they just added a third one for the fellas. That’s the UEFA Europa Conference League. To go with the Champions League and Europa League.
Qualification is mixed between the three of them, a great example being how Logan Rogerson’s HJK started in the UCL qualifiers, dropped into the Europa qualifiers, then lost those and went into the Conference League. They just lost 2-0 to LASK (Austria) in their first group stage game but Rogerson of course is out on loan at FC Haka at the moment. Same deal for FC Copenhagen who had a nice win first up but Marko Stamenic is on loan at HB Køge. Greg Draper left TNS long before they fell on penalties in the third qualifying round. Ryan De Vries and Sligo Rovers also went down in qualifying.
The last couple years have felt like a race between Ryan Thomas and Sarpreet Singh to see who next brings a New Zealand flag to a team sheet in the men’s Champions League. But Sarpreet Singh’s not at Bayern Munich these days while Thomas’ PSV side stumbled at home against 10-man Benfica in the second leg of the playoff round (which was written about in Flying Kiwis a few weeks back). All these options filtering away, man. Thus PSV ended up in the Europa League for the third season in a row. Winston Reid at West Ham is the only other NZer in the Europas but he’s not excepted to play.
Thomas is, however. And he did. RT came off the bench in the 64th minute of a really entertaining clash at home against Real Sociedad in game one for his 7th career Europa appearance. Only Wynton Rufer (16 games for GC Zurich & Werder Bremen) has played more in this competition as a New Zealander. Now that’s what we’re talking about.
PSV took the lead in the first half thanks to Mario Götze but then the Spanish side deservedly went into the half with the lead. Adnan Januzaj and Alexander Isak with the goals. Sociedad were all about the possession footy and that kept the pressure on PSV’s much improved defence throughout that half... though it also left them vulnerable to the high press a few times. Yet the second stanza was completely different as Cody Gakpo levelled things up and then the Dutch side spent the rest of the game pushing for a winner. Jordan Teze, the right back, missed one golden chance running in behind and then nearly scored a stunner when he rocked the post from distance soon after. A terrible back-header from PSV’s Olivier Boscagli nearly Jesse Lingarded the game away at the end but they survived and were in complete ascendance during the seven mins of stoppage time.
It ended 2-2. No winner forthcoming. Great game of footy though between probably the two favoured teams in the group. Monaco beat Sturm Graz 1-0 in the other game.
Ryan Thomas played in central midfield when he came on, mostly just looking to knock the ball around at a good tempo and feed the attackers with the team chasing a goal. A couple rusty touches which was to be expected considering he missed the weekend’s win over AZ with illness. Otherwise did a solid job. There were loan rumours swirling about him nearing the transfer deadline but those were more about other clubs seeing if they could get him. PSV were always happy to keep him around – it seems that while coach Roger Schmidt doesn’t see Thommo as a first XI player, he definitely likes him as an option. He’s trusted him off the bench in a variety of positions.
Sidenote: I’ve got mixed opinions about Spark’s Champions League/Europa/Conference offerings. On the one hand the in-studio stuff is lightyears ahead of what Sky Sports had. It’s BT Sport instead of BeIN Sports. BeIN would lead their stuff with Richard Keys and Andy Gray who were booted off the English Sky Sports for being dinosaurs a decade ago and thus unsurprisingly the convo there would very quickly descend into ‘kids these days’ territory. Sometimes they’d get good pundits. Ruud Gullit is excellent. But BT Sports is way better.
Yet at the same time Spark only seem to offer a couple of live games each day for some reason. Mostly the ones involving British teams. There are two minute highlights packages, plus a round-up show, but if you wanted to watch that PSV game for example you had to stretch to not-entirely-legal means. I don’t understand why a streaming service not bound by a limited number of channels can’t have all the games at least available as replays later in the day. I’m also still left wishing Spark was easier to traverse. BeIN Connect has this problem too. Kinda hard to find what you’re looking for if it’s not on live.
Boxing Stuff
There you go. Joseph Parker vs Derek Chisora II. Not until December which feels like a long wait but it will meant a full training camp with his new-ish trainer in order to figure out what tweaks need to be made from the first fight against this bloke and how he can bag another W for the record. Chisora will be Parker’s first repeat opponent as a professional.
I’ve literally just finished writing about this fight and why it emerged as the best option for Parker right now. It’s a bit boring taking on the same guy again when he’d already beaten him last time but there aren’t that many options out there at the moment and none of the others have the marketing potential that this one has. Basically as soon as Chisora started whining about the decision in his post-fight interview last time the rematch was always a good chance of happening.
I reckon it suits Parker better though, in a funny way. The closeness of the last fight depended on Parker’s slow start – including a seven second knockdown. The last seven rounds or so saw Parker’s superior fitness shine through and he was able to rack up the points with gas still left in the tank (compared to a gasping Chisora). The adjustments that he can make in the second fight to avoid those dramas are way more achievable than what Chisora would need to do to to overcome his deficiencies from the first bout. He’s not suddenly gonna get marathon endurance at age 37, is he? A second fight under Andy Lee’s tutelage should also be way more reflective of where that partnership is heading.
News of Joseph Parker’s next move also got me thinking about Junior Fa. He hasn’t fought since February when he took on Parker, putting his name out there to world boxing with a commendable performance against a former champ. As recently as a couple weeks ago Fa was talking about his frustration with the lack of opportunities that’ve come along since then and how he may have to move overseas to avoid wasting the peak years of his career.
The one bout that is continually being talked about is Junior Fa vs Justis Huni, the Aussie heavyweight who took down Paul Gallen a few months back. A legit prospect in the division despite fighting a former rugby league player there. Gotta do what it takes to build a profile early in one’s career after all – Joseph Parker fought some dumb match-ups early on too. Back when Dean Lonergan was still with Duco and oh look who Justis Huni’s promoter happens to be... it’s Dean Lonergan!
Only problem was that Justis Huni broke a couple bones in his hand in the Gallen fight, which cost him the chance to compete as a super-heavyweight at the Olympic Games and has delayed any possible Fa fight. Right now there are ongoing negotiations between the Fa and Huni camps with an eye on making it happen early next year. Fa’s management were tough negotiators against Joseph Parker before that one was eventually booked, despite the gap in prestige between the fighters at that point, so you know they’re not gonna let Lonergan get away with any tricks. Here’s hoping it happens because Junior Fa deserves to get that flow on effect after his performance against Parker.
The other guy I’m waiting to hear more about is David Nyika as he prepares to turn fully professional after his Olympic bronze medal. But doesn’t seem like anything’s happened there yet. I’m assuming that Nyika will start off as a cruiserweight, though the most crucial decision he’s gotta make is which direction to head in: USA or England. Those are the two hubs for the sport at the moment. Top notch promoters in each nation, boundless opportunities. We’ll see what happens.
Good Vibes
