Podcast
TNC Variety Show - Episode 25
The Niche Cast: Golden Generations
Reading Menu
Further Adventures In Aotearoa Olympic Football Preparation (Football)
Flying Kiwis – July 13 (Football)
2021 Kiwi County Tour: T20 1st 11 (Aotearoa T20 Depth) (Cricket)
Scotty’s Word
Rugby League…
One of the steady threads in my Kiwi-NRL notes this year has been Wests Tigers recruiting Kiwi-NRL youngsters from other clubs (as opposed to recruiting from Aotearoa). As the Tigers continue to suck, we are now seeing the fruits of this labour with Junior Pauga (centre) and Tukimihia Simpkins (bench) named to make their debuts this weekend. Neither Pauga or Simpkins were with the Tigers on Janurary 1st, 2021.
This takes us to 10 Kiwi-NRL debutants this year, after 14 last year. I reckon we can hit the 14 mark again as there are four lads on the fringes right now; Xavier Willison (Broncos), Griffin Neame (Cowboys), Jirah Momoisea (Knights) and Naufahu Whyte (Roosters). Some like Momoisea have been waiting a long time, others like Willison have had a swift rise through their clubs ranks.
Pauga is from Kelston Boys/Glenora Bears and came up through NZ Warriors Under 20s before moving to Wynnum-Manly Seagulls in Brisbane. Pauga was consistently playing centre in Queensland’s Intrust Super Cup and after four games this year, was signed by the Tigers. Now he’s making his NRL debut for Tigers.
Simpkins was a highly sought-after prospect out of Rotorua Boys High School and North Queensland Cowboys snapped him up while he was doing the RBHS double of union and league. Simpkins was already a major presence on my radar while with Cowboys, then he made a summer move to Tigers (while other Kiwi-NRL youngsters have stalled under coach Todd Payten).
Simpkins has played 12 games in NSW Cup with 50+ minutes in eight of them and all have been in the middle. Pauga has played 5 games of NSW Cup with 12 tackle busts and 130m per game.
I have also been following the journey of NZ Warriors winger Junior Ratuva. Ratuva is from Fiji and played lock for Kings College 1st 15 before being recruited by Melbourne Storm. Ratuva had some kind of mishap (probably injury) that resulted in him moving to Canterbury rugby although I can’t find him actually playing a NPC game (probably injury) and then NZ Warriors picked up him up (he’s a classic Peter O’Sullivan talent).
Ratuva seemed to suffer a season-ending injury and was then rubbed out of the top-30 squad early this year, although there doesn’t seem to have been any intention from Warriors to kick Ratuva to the curb. On the 3rd of July, Ratuva played on the wing for Bay Roskill in Fox Memorial which was likely via the Jarome Ropati/Ben Henry connection.
Last weekend, seven days after playing for Bay Roskill, Ratuva was on the wing for Redcliffe Dolphins in Intrust Super Cup. This tells me that Ratuva is definitely part of the Warriors plans moving forward and this is another example of the Warriors doing a nice job in managing their junior pipeline across two countries.
The Kepu twins have also been recently promoted for consistent reserve grade selections - up from U21s. Kina and Peesi are Manurewa Marlins juniors with Peesi starting on an edge last week and Kina coming off the bench.
Three quick things…
The longer David Fusitu’a is not on the scene … the weirder this gets.
No Aotearoa Kiwis footy since 2019. Kiwi-NRL is booming, international footy not so much.
Auckland Rugby League announced the ‘WNA Coach Development Programme’ working alongside NZ Warriors and NZRL. Without going too deep into the mangroves, this is a trend across various initiatives and I consider it a product of the Phil Gould arrival where people and organisations that didn’t always work well together now finding alignment for the greater good.
Cricket…
All domestic cricket contracts have been announced and yesterday I updated the second round wrap up to include Northern Districts Knights contracts. Below is a quick exercise to highlight some of the best prospects with each team and while some are fresh youngsters on their first deal, a couple others are talented youngsters who I suggest you note down…
Auckland - Adithya Ashok (leggy).
ND Knights - Kristian Clarke (seam all-rounder).
CD Stags - Bayley Wiggins (slugger).
Wellington - Luke Georgeson (seam all-rounder).
Canterbury - Leo Carter (slugger).
Otago - Jake Gibson (seamer).
Wildcard’s Notebook
Stotty & Pledge
How brilliant that both Rebekah Stott and Alex Pledger were able to return to the field/court in the same week as each other after getting through their respective cancer treatments? A couple shocking bits of news when those diagnoses were first announced but fantastic and heart-warming to see them both getting back to what they do best. Stotty’s blogging throughout her journey is really worth a look if you weren’t keeping up at the time.
Bloody love it, mate.
Breakers Free Agency Rollercoaster
Here’s another wild development...
Even the coach had been saying he expected Finn Delany to be outta there and off to Europe down the stretch of last season but nope the out-clause expired and Delany’s still hanging about. Which I’m trying to figure out what that means for their roster because with Peyton Siva and Hugo Besson supposedly on the way, though not yet confirmed, that would take them up to 11 contracted players plus a pair of development players and a Next Star. Last season they cut the rosters to 10 players and only two imports. Supposedly they’ll be back to 11 & 3 this time but the Breakers, as things stand, don’t have room for a third import. Next Stars don’t count towards by the way.
However it appears that Corey Webster might be looking at a departure, which would clear that up a little bit. Not entirely, you’d still have Tai Webster, Peyton Siva, William McDowell-White, etc. It’s a difficult one to make work and that’s what you get with the Breakers who are all about Talent > Fit and backing their coach to figure things out. I wrote about that in a previous email.
Liam Santamaria reckons that Corey might even end up on a rival NBL team with Brisbane, Perth, Illawarra, and Sydney all mentioned as possible landing spots. Perth would be the funkiest one there because of course he very briefly signed with them a couple years back but didn’t end up playing. Take two could be fun... and you’ll never get me complaining about spreading the Aotearoa comrades around the league. Perth only had Taylor Britt on a DP deal last time so they need a bit more Tall Blacks action going on. Throw it back to the Jarrod Kenny days.
Funny thing, while I was trying to find some confirmation about the roster sizes for next season, I stumbled upon this in my google searching...
How’d that one work out for ya? The things you find on the internet, honestly. Speaking of which...
Olympic Footy
The OlyWhites lost 1-0 to Australia in their rematch last night, doesn’t really matter at all. More just a chance to work on combos and get some minutes in the legs. A few of these dudes are in their offseason so it’s valuable practice. Much more damaging though is this revelation that we’ve been predicted to lose the opening game to South Korea by a magic turtle or something...
As for the Footy Ferns, there remains basically zero information out there about their 3-0 behind-closed-doors loss to Great Britain on Wednesday night. Presumably just the way that Tom Sermanni likes it. I wrote a full thing about the Olympic football prep so read that if you want more from where this came from. I mostly just wanted to share the link with the turtle.
Have A Laugh
Enjoy your weekend, folks. If you’re playing sports, play well. If you’re watching sports, watch well. If you’ve got nothing to do with sports you might be subscribed to the wrong email newsletter but go well all the same.