The Recipe
Blackcaps win again, National League footy things, NZ Warriors updates, Lydia Ko glory & Steven Adams screens
Podcast
The Niche Cast: Get The Win
Reading Menu
2021/22 Hallburton Johnstone Shield: Amelia Kerr Is Back! (Cricket)
The Sky Blue Connection: Cronulla Sharks Love Otahuhu Leopards (Semisi Sikei/Salesi Ataata) (NRL)
Transfer Troubles Mean The Welly Nix Academy Is Ready For Its Close-Up (Football)
All Whites vs The Gambia: Squad Yarns (Football)
Get To Know The Wellington Phoenix Women’s Inaugural Kiwi Contingent (Football)
2021 T20 World Cup: Blackcaps Recipe (Cricket)
Scotty’s Word
Blackcaps beat Afghanistan…
In writing the Blackcaps Recipe thing ahead of Blackcaps vs Afghanistan, the niggly vibes were amplified. The challenge Afghanistan could throw up was already there for all to see, then I came to realise that Aotearoa would be playing their third game in five days featuring three different venues. Conditions vary between Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and Dubai so that can’t be slept on and the fatigue felt by Martin Guptill as he smacked 90-odd vs Scotland shows the challenge of playing a bunch of games in a week or so. Niggly opponent and tricky scenario … in a must win game.
That Blackcaps recipe thing was just a way to break down the basics of how this team plays T20 cricket. Whether it was Tim Southee and Trent Boult combining for 5 wickets or the top-four scoring 125 runs or typically slick Blackcaps fielding or maybe even a slight pivot in bowling tactics to serve hard lengths etc; this was a Blackcaps masterclass.
These ideas aren’t new, I hammer them home because they are certified trend that is aligned with success. In major tournaments the Blackcaps don’t command headlines, they don’t whip everyone into a frenzy by dominating teams or doing headliney type things. This team zones in on each game, doing what needs to be done to win and do so with a level of consistency that makes them hard to beat. Blackcaps don’t have bad days too often and that’s a fairly easy route to success.
Much of this stems from Kane Williamson. Right now I’m pondering how Boult best reflects these ideas and there aren’t too many yarns about Boult’s excellence coming out of this World Cup, just as Aotearoa wasn’t and isn’t being thrown up a favourite to win it all. Four bowlers have taken 10+ wickets in the World Cup, three are spinners and one is Boult; 11w @ 10.45avg/5.84rpo/10.7sr.
Boult has a fabulous T20I record: 57w @ 20.85avg/8.17rpo/15.3sr.
Boult has a fabulous T20 record: 165w @ 25.38avg/8.18rpo/18.6sr
Boult’s T20I bowling strike-rate (15.3) is ranked 19th all time. Ish Sodhi isn’t far behind with his 15.8sr ranked tied-22nd. Given that most of the 18 bowlers with better strike-rates than Boult are spinners or seamers who have retired, Boult is genuinely one of the best T20 seamers in the world. Check around the coverage of Blackcaps cricket and you won’t find Boult celebrated in that fashion.
What’s funky about Boult is that this is the first calendar year in which he has played 10 T20I games. Boult’s played just two games in each of the last two years and when Aotearoa’s lacing up for T20I cricket, Boult is usually taking a break. As noted during the IPL, Boult makes up for this by being the busiest IPL kiwi alongside Williamson; Boult has played 10+ IPL games in three of the last four years.
Southee’s an interesting tale as well. Southee conceded 10.33rpo and 10.50rpo in the two warm up games, now he’s the most economical Blackcaps bowler conceding just 5.70rpo. White Ferns selectors love warm up games, but this is another example of how silly any insights are from warm up games. Southee has 7w in this World Cup, Sodhi 8w and with Boult on 11w they are the main weapons.
This is Southee’s best year of T20I bowling: 19w @ 18.31avg/7.10rpo/15.4sr.
Southee and Boult basically swapped T20I workloads. Southee played five or less games for four consecutive years between 2013-2017, then playing 12, 12, 9 and 13 games in the next four years. They have had very different paths to this moment and have come together at this World Cup to be a force in the pool stage. Now we wait to see what they can do when games matter a bit more.
Lydia Ko wins!
Lydia Ko grabbed a European Ladies Tour win in Saudi Arabia, finishing -23 and five shots ahead of 2nd. It’s been a tricky few months following Ko as everything is easier to track in LPGA events (results and stats are laid out in easy to digest ways) and Ko has popped up on the Korean LPGA to finish tied-5th at the Hana Championship, before playing the LPGA event in Korea. Ko finished T3 at the Ladies Championship and then she hit up the European tour for this win.
This is tricky because not all of Ko’s results are listed in her LPGA.com profile. For example, the Tokyo Olympics isn’t listed along with Ko’s top-five finishes in the tournaments above. Bit of extra mahi and piecing together the calendar results in a monster patch of form for Ko…
Here’s what 18-year-old Atthaya Thitikul who finished 2nd had to say about Ko…
“I just did my best out there today with every single shot, but Lydia was absolutely brilliant. I learned a lot from her today, Lydia Ko has one of the best short games ever, her putting was brilliant, and every approach shot she played this week, I can definitely learn to get better from her.
NZ Warriors updates…
NZ Warriors announced their squad for 2022 and other squads around the NRL are being announced which makes it a fun time of the year. First though I’ll chuck up Vaka Sikahele and Isaac Matalavea-Booth training with Gold Coast Titans NRL squad - both are Manurewa Marlins and I wrote about GC Titans becoming a Kiwi-NRL force here.
Next up is this idea oodles of Warriors fear about Peter O’Sullivan poaching Warriors talent. William Fakatoumafi (U21s) and Daeon Amituanai (U18 and U21s) were part of NZ Warriors/Redcliffe Dolphins this year, both were named in Penrith Panthers Jersey Flegg squad (U20s this year I think). Jyris Glamuzina also played for Redcliffe U21s and he’s joined Newcastle Knights, while Temple Kalepo was reported as joining Knights and named in Warriors NRL squad. Not sure what’s doing with Kalepo (lol) but there’s three Warriors lads who were shipped over to Redcliffe by Warriors who are now joining other NRL clubs.
Every NRL club loves talent from Aotearoa and O’Sullivan has nothing to do with this.
NZ Warriors Development Players: Lleyton Finau, Kina Kepu, Lingi Kepu, Taniela Otukolo.
All played for Redcliffe this year and all played vs men this year; Kepu twins played Intrust Super Cup, Otukolo played NRL and Finau returned to Auckland mid-season to play Fox Memorial.
Aotearoa Train and Trial players: Jacob Laban, Zyon Maiu’u, Eric Va’afusuaga, Demitric Sifakula, Ali Leiataua, Tom Ale.
Australian Train and Trial players: Trei Fuller, Jayden Corrigan, Garrett Smith, Ash Taylor, Jackson Frei, Adam Cook.
Va’afusuaga played Redcliffe U21s this year, Ale played Redcliffe ISC. Laban and Maiu’u are promoted from Kelston Boys High School 1st 15. Leiataua is promoted from Kings College 1st 15. Leiataua and Maiu’u played NZ Warriors SG Ball in 2020.
Sifakula featured in ‘Future Warriors’ games, while at De La Salle College and he’s another Otahuhu junior who seems to cover fullback/centres.
Wildcard’s Notebook
National League Things...
The National League has begun. The South Central Series which doesn’t include Northern League has, anyway, which is close enough. Five games a week for the next wee while across the men’s and women’s competitions. The write-ups should both be out later tonight or early tomorrow morning the way it’s going. This may force me to take longer on Flying Kiwis now, could push some of those back to Wednesday morning if I fall behind (they’ve already been absolute scrambles to get done with how much has been going on), although this is a short National League season and it does coincide with a couple international windows so I’m hopeful I can handle the workload without spontaneously combusting (I’m reading Stephen King’s Firestarter at the moment, good lord what a book that is).
Last season I used these Monday emails to hurl out a Team of the Week for the men’s comp and I’ve been wondering the last few days how to tackle something similar. Problem is, three games isn’t really much good for that purpose. Not enough players in the mix. And I don’t wanna do a combined men/women one because that’s silly, you can’t have a team of the week that includes players from different non-adjacent competitions.
So I think what I’ll do instead is use these emails to chuck up a few random thoughts/reactions/etc from the weekend’s games. Can’t always guarantee to have watched them all by this time but I will have seen every game by the time the write-ups emerge so if I miss your team here, I’ll catch them there don’t worry.
1) Ollie Whyte is too good for this level. It’s a pity he’s not in Australia with the Wellington Phoenix right now because he came bloody close, even playing for the Nix in one of their preseason games. Whyte put on a masterclass for Miramar Rangers as they rallied from 1-0 down at HT to win 2-1 against 10-man Western Suburbs. He scored the equaliser and went close several other times (he must’ve had like 4-5 blocked shots). But the attacking thing is only the icing on the cake, it’s the way he patrols the midfield that really counts. Great technical player who isn’t afraid to mix in a bit of flair now and then yet he hardly ever loses possession. Plus it’s not like he’s just knocking it back safely to his defenders, he’s regularly looking for the forward pass into the attacking third. Easily one of the best domestic based kiwi footballers right now.
2) Shout out to that Southern United back four. They were immense against Canterbury Pride as United claimed the only real upset of the weekend. Came from an early goal down to win 2-1 against the defending champs thanks to some brilliantly structured shape and an excessive quantity of energy and physicality that a new-looking Pride team couldn’t deal with. They pressed them up top and they roughed them in the middle. But it all began with what their backline achieved in shutting down any and all hints of space in the penalty area. It was Renee Bacon and Toni Power out wide with Hannah Mackay-Wright and Kelsey Kennard in the middle, all four of them regulars last season and you could tell. They were damn near flawless – the only goal they conceded was from a bit of a freakish corner kick. Yes, Annalie Longo hit the post at one point but she’ll do that to anyone. It was block after block after clearance after intercept for this lot on the way to a memorable victory.
3) This competition is operating with the youth player quota that came into effect when the league was realigned and it looks like the non-competitive nature of this South Central Series is gonna drive teams even younger than they need to be. We’ll see how it goes over the course of the whole thing but examples include Toby Hunt starting in goal for Wellington Olympic and a WeeNix team that was always gonna trend younger because of the number of guys who’ve just graduated to the first team but which was even younger than anticipated with only three starters who even played at all last season including a completely fresh back four, while Cashmere Tech mixed it up a little too and in the women’s SCS we saw Central and Canterbury in particular trending towards youth. Probably a good time for it – the thing with youth quotas is that the folks you pick keep bloody ageing out of them so you’ve gotta constantly refresh the stocks. This comp is a relatively low risk chance to give next year’s lot a boost of experience. It was definitely a subtle trend on the weekend.
4) If Ollie Whyte was the best on show on the men’s side then Helena Errington gets that honour for the women. She started off for Capital sitting deep in midfield and moving the ball around with rhythm. Then as they altered their defensive shape in the second half she ended up in more of a number eight role where she was all class, stepping up and creating things with great vision. She just looked like she had more time than anyone else and that is always a good sign for a midfielder. Funky thing about Errington is that she’s part of the Ole Academy system, probably the next major female talent they’ve produced after Maya Hahn. That’s what we wanna see.
5) Look at this goal from Oskar van Hattum...
19yo OVH has been in the WeeNix system for a few years, in and out of the starting line-up last season but yet to really break through. He’s had to do a bit of get-in-where-yo-fit-in which doesn’t always help but also he’s just been in a scenario where other attacking players have played better. Ben Waine. Riley Bidois. George Ott. Tom Raimbault. Luis Toomey. It is what it is.
However at least three of those guys won’t be around this Natty League and Toomey will probably play deeper more often than not which clears the path for Van Hattum to not only play but to be a key player. These next few weeks could be his chance to define what he has to offer. OVH also scored the first goal in the WeeNix’s 4-2 defeat, a goalkeeping error but you take them however they come so that’s two in the bag for him already.
As for the rest of the new crop of WeeNixers, many of which this was the first time I’ve been able to see them play, I liked what I saw from Isaac Hughes and Marco Lorenz at the back. Plus Kailyn Nguyen looks like a fella with some serious pace, while Manny Achol was a great pick up from them in the winter.
Flying Kiwis Footy...
As I say, Flying Kiwis is in the works. It’s coming. And it’s gonna be a beaut this week because it was just one goal after another for these kiwi ballers. Not gonna spoil all the fun stuff but here’s a quick selection...
Steven Adams On The Big Screens...
And one last thing before I get back to writing about footy, I’ll hopefully also finish the next Steven Adams article by Wednesday morning (or earlier) and that one is gonna have a focus on his match up with reigning MVP Nikola Jokic as Memphis played Denver twice in a row late last week.
Adams didn’t clog up the stats in those games but there was a clear focus on him matching Jokic’s minutes, basically handcuffing himself to the Serbian. Not enough to shut him down, nobody in the league is achieving that, but he did grind the guy into the ground and made him work for everything he got. Engaging him in the scrappy stuff. Lots of box outs and defensive energy.
And then taking advantage of that heavyweight battle with his screen game. After 20 screen assists through his first six games, Steve-o had 19 of them in these two games combined. I even went back to the replay to clip out highlights of his screening which I’ll put to use in the article but here I just wanted to drop this quote from Nuggets coach Mike Malone after the first game. Unprompted he chucks Adams’ name out there and starts explaining how his screen game killed them...
“Obviously part of it is Ja because he’s got the ball in his hands and he’s a special player but they keep stats on everything now and I’d have to imagine that Steven Adams is up there on screen assists. And if you watch the game and see what he does – and he did this when he was in Oklahoma City with Russell Westbrook – most times when you set a screen you’re screening the ball-handler’s defender. Well what Steven does, a lot of times, he screens his own defender. He seals him up the lane. So now Ja gets by his man and now Steven Adams is sealing his defender and now it’s just an open lane. So we need to find a way to move that mountain, get him out of the pain, not let him seal us, so we can have a body at the rim. He’s taking that help away.”
You’ll be pleased to know his own coach is on the same bandwagon too...
