The Saltiness
Super Smash notes, Flying Kiwis Transfer Tracker, some Kiwi-NRL, plus Michael Venus vs Nick Kyrgios
Podcast
TNC Variety Show 48 (Eden Carson/Tom Latham, Gary Hooper, Lydia Ko, Kiwi-NRL)
The Niche Cast - Corporeal Form (Super Smash Finals Preview)
Reading Menu
2021/22 Men's Super Smash: Northern vs Canterbury (Final Preview) (Cricket)
2021/22 Women's Super Smash: Wellington vs Otago (Final Preview) (Cricket)
10 Funky Kiwi-NRL Second Year Lads For 2022 (No NZ Warriors) (NRL)
Flying Kiwis – January 25 (Football)
All Whites vs Jordan/Uzbekistan: Squad Yarns (Football)
In Their Time Of Need, Newcastle United Have Turned To Chris Wood To Save Them (Football)
What Will Gael Sandoval & Scott Wootton Bring To The Wellington Phoenix? (Football)
Scotty’s Word
Super Smash Elimination Final loser notes…
Auckland women lost to Otago and Wellington men lost to Canterbury. I’ve whipped up two comprehensive previews for each final, so check those out. Here I’ll drop some notes on the two teams who lost…
Unfortunately for Auckland they had no Holly Huddleston or Anna Peterson against Otago, both of whom have played for Aotearoa and are domestic veterans. This left a super young Auckland group up against a confident Otago group and Auckland didn’t offer much of a challenge.
Auckland battled well and while not really pushing Otago, Auckland didn’t crumble. I still don’t think any of the Auckland youngsters are among Aotearoa’s best or on par with Wellington or Otago’ development system, which is a hot take when it comes to Fran Jonas and Molly Penfold. A hot take I am comfortable with.
Auckland are also 0-4 in HBJ Shield (one-dayers). Auckland are a interesting case study in player development as their young players aren’t getting better, meanwhile other teams are doing this extremely well. Whether it’s 17-year-old Wellington batter Georgia Plimmer having a higher strike-rate (109sr) than every notable Auckland batter, or Otago’s young bowlers all operating with strike-rates below 20 while no Auckland bowler is below 20sr; something is icky about the Auckland system.
Auckland claimed 3rd with nice wins over a kinda stagnant Canterbury team, while Northern and Central were bankable wins. Northern and Central will get better though as they are super young as well, perhaps providing a better comparison for Auckland rather than comparing them to Wellington/Otago. I’ll be tracking this Auckland/Central/Northern trio over the rest of the HBJ Shield and this will be a funky check in next season.
Wellington’s blokes fell short against Canterbury and Michael Bracewell’s epic campaign comes to an end (478 runs @ 79.66avg/148.90sr). Despite my love of Bracewell’s leadership, Wellington lacked the class to seal a victory over Northern in the game prior and then let a strong position slip vs Canterbury.
I’m super curious about Wellington moving forward in the Super Smash because they had the likes of Troy Johnson (24yrs), Tim Robinson (19yrs), Nick Greenwood (22yrs), Luke Georgeson (22yrs) and Jakob Bhula (22yrs) play during the campaign. Wellington are the best blokes Super Smash team of the past five years and next summer could present these lads with more opportunities, plus a more settled line up.
Wellington have the best combined development system (blokes + wahine) with immense top-tier talent understandably clogging up their 1st 11. I don’t think Wellington are in the business of letting their youngsters depart to other teams and the likes of Johnson, Robinson and Georgeson are deserving of regular Super Smash cricket. Wellington aren’t going anywhere, they’ll be competing for the Super Smash championship again next season.
One Rugby League Thing…
Melbourne Storm are losing players for 2023, opening up a new avenue for Kiwi-NRL talent. All the noise around 2023 signings is weird because folks forget about 2022, but we do have Jesse Bromwich signing on with Redcliffe Dolphins and younger bro Kenny is likely to join him, while Brandon Smith is off to Sydney Roosters for 2023. The Storm recruited Judda Turahui from Kings College 1st 15 who recruited him from Taranaki and he was allowed to leave to the Bulldogs this season.
Jahrome Hughes is locked down and the Storm recently locked down Reimis Smith (born and raised in Sydney but heavy Aotearoa Kiwis vibes via his father). Young outside backs Tea-Rani Woodman-Tuhoro (Northland) and K-Ci Newton-Whare (Christchurch) are now in the Storm system with their Queensland feeder clubs, presenting an intriguing Kiwi-NRL wrinkle as Storm refresh their roster over the next 12-18 months.
Melbourne Storm have the strongest Kiwi-NRL mahi over the past 15 years. How they apply their knowledge of Aotearoa and Kiwi-NRL talent will be fascinating to observe as they won’t be signing less Kiwi-NRL juniors when the number of Kiwi-NRL juniors hunting NRL gigs at a record high.
Big jam…
Wildcard’s Notebook
Flying Kiwis Transfer Tracker
Trade alert right off the bat. Ali Riley has been flipped to Angel City FC with her old team Orlando Pride getting a third round 2023 draft pick and $15k in allocation money in return. Which is not a huge haul to be honest but she’s a 34 year old fullback who doesn’t play for the USA national team so it was never gonna be. The important thing is that she’s now in a much better position.
The Orlando Pride had been pretty poor in the second half of the 2021 season and have since well and truly flicked the switch into rebuild mode. They’ve hired a head coach who’s experience has mostly come at college level. Alex Morgan has been traded to San Diego. A lot of their best players are around Riley’s age (Marta, Sydney Leroux, etc.). They probably won’t be up to a whole lot this year as they try to integrate a few new players and get younger overall.
Ali Riley was given a new 1-year contract by Orlando as the off-season began but was left unprotected when San Diego and Angel City had their expansion draft but she didn’t get picked. Both teams literally had turns where they passed so it’s not like they didn’t have a shot at her earlier. Makes this a tad weird with the timing but ACFC got her pretty cheap in the end, regardless. The move means that California native Ali Riley gets to move back to her birth state, playing out of LA for a club whose ownership is predominantly made up of female celebrities (led by Natalie Portman and a few businessfolks – including Serena Williams’ husband).
That side of things gets a wee bit cringey but the football side has been impressive so far. They hired a genuine coach in Freya Coombe, with Eni Aluko as the sporting director. Both English, both clever footballing minds, both avoiding the Biggest Name Possible trick (which an LA-based, celebrity-owned team could easily have blindly stumbled into). Christen Press is their star signing. Julie Ertz is there as well, to go with a heap of solid NWSL experienced players. Many of whom are defenders but they definitely had need for a reliable fullback who can play on either side. Thus in comes Ali Riley. Sweet as.
Probably to be expected, but Marko Stamenic has rejoined HB Køge on loan for the rest of the Danish season. He played ten times for them before the winter break scoring once, before returning to FC København for some friendlies and a training camp. Stamenic featured prominently for FCK in the preseason and it was the same in the midseason – getting ninety minutes in a match against Hvidovre just before leaving to link up with the NZ national team. International duty probably accelerated things by taking him out of København training. Thus the loan has been confirmed now. Gives him plenty of time to crack back into things with HBK.
The ideal situation would have been that he went back to Copenhagen and broke into their first team but realistically there are just too many dudes ahead of him in that pecking order right now. He was playing great for Køge so it makes more sense to keep things trucking. Next season will hopefully be the one for Marko at FCK. In the meantime he’ll be a key player for the Daniel Agger-managed HBK as they try to jump up into the top half of the table before things split for the championship rounds.
FCK sports director Peter Christiansen: “Marko gained a really positive development during his first stay at HB Køge, where he played a lot of senior matches. The goal of this agreement is for him to continue that development in a good environment, and then we look forward to him returning this summer.”
HB Køge director Per Rud: “We are really happy that FCK has agreed that Marko can continue with us. It is optimal for us. Marko showed his high level in the autumn, where he did well and made his mark on the team. He knows the club and is a good boy who fits in well here, so it is the best possible solution for us.”
The Ole Football Academy production line never falters. This week came news that winger Otto Ingham, defender Robert Sabo, and goalkeeper Kees Sims are off to join Swedish Division 1 side Ljungskile SK for the 2022 season. All three were among the top performers for Western Suburbs last year now all three – the oldest of whom is Ingham who turns 20 next week – are into the pro ranks.
This move came about through a strategic partnership between LSK and Ole Academy which was sorted out last year, effectively a lesser version of their existing links with the likes of Torslanda (Sweden) and Helsingør (Denmark). In terms of standards of play, it’s somewhere in between those two.
Division 1 is the third tier of footy in Sweden, LSK finishing sixth in the southern conference last year having been relegated from the second tier in 2020 (a year after being promoted from Div1). They spent the 2008 season in the top flight Allsvenskan. Should be a team with expectations of challenging for promotion back to the second tier this season and hopefully Ingham, Sabo, and Sims can be immediately impactful. They’ve got Francis De Vries (and current free agent Joel Stevens) to look up to there. FDV signed with IFK Värnamo when they were a Division 1 club and they’ve just had back to back promotions.
Breezing around the rest of the scene, there hasn’t been an update on Joe Bell and there are only a couple of days left in the transfer window. Looks like that one’ll go down to the wire. Winston Reid continues to go unmentioned too – the UAE Pro League is midway through its season with the same January transfer window in play, though the complicating factor there (if he chooses to play six months in UAE as Danny Hay has hinted he may) is that there’s a four-player foreigner limit for those clubs so someone would have to be dropped for him to be added.
Liberato Cacace looks likely to stay at STVV for the rest of the season. Rosie White, CJ Bott, Daisy Cleverley, and Jacqui Hand are all free agents as things stand. As is Kelvin Kalua in the current All Whites squad. Joel Stevens was released by Värnamo after the 2021 season. Could be a few loan outs too. Plenty more juice in the tank ahead of Deadline Day.
Venus In Furrrrrs
Absolutely cracking game of tennis at the Aussie Open the other day as NZ’s own Michael Venus and his German men’s doubles partner Tim Puetz went down in three sets to the Aussies Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis. Feisty affair with a very hectic partisan crowd cheering for the homers, constantly having to be quietened down. The chair umpire was copping it from both sides. There was a fair bit of niggle between the two teams. The tennis itself was top quality. Great entertainment.
Mike Venus then maybe didn’t take the defeat too well by labelling Nick Kyrgios an “absolute knob” with the maturity levels of “a ten year old” - which he reckoned is why NK will never reach his potential. Clearly not a happy chappie. I mean, I dunno what Kyrgios is like off the court but I’ve always dug him as a tennis player and I rate that he’s out there willing to play the villain. Top tier sport is so often about the narratives and so even if he oversteps the line sometimes (which he clearly does) he’s still a positive force within tennis overall. Cannot deny that he’s bringing in interest beyond the sport’s usual realms which can only be good for tennis.
(Typical 1News managed to spell Kyrgios’ name wrong in the tweet, lol)
By the way, this was Kyrgios’ response in his next media opp: “As for Michael Venus, I’m not gonna *destroy* him in this media conference room right now but Zeballos and Granollers are great singles players who’ve had great careers and I respect them a lot more than I respect Michael Venus.” - Zeballos & Granollers being the pair that NK&TK then beat in the semis, Kyrgios going on to talk about how they embraced the atmosphere rather than getting “salty when [they] started losing”.
Which in fairness wasn’t the whole point of what Venus was annoyed at. He was being put off with his serve and then being booed as he tried to reload, with Kyrgios complaining regularly despite there not actually being any issue with that as a rule (at least according to the commentators). He was annoyed about that during the second set which he and Puetz won too. It wasn’t a product of losing. Though... yeah perhaps not the wisest thing to call a bloke an absolute knob after defeat.
Tell you what though, Kyrgios has never won a grand slam title. Michael Venus has. Respect where it’s due, brother. Not just from Kyrgios (who had reason to take a pot shot given Venus had already said worse about him) but from Aotearoa in general because watching the man MV do his thing at a high level at yet another grand slam event, it reminded me (once more) how underrated this dude is across the kiwi public. The Olympic medal definitely helped but his reputation still isn’t where it should be for a tennis player from Aotearoa achieving what he has for as long as he has. Being a doubles player (often with non-NZ partners) is probably a hindrance too. But it shouldn’t be.
Michael Venus has spent eight weeks in his career ranked in the top ten as a doubles player. He hasn’t been ranked outside the top 50 since June 2015 and hasn’t been outside the top 25 since May 2017. He’s a Grand Slam winner, lifting the French Open with Ryan Harrison in 2017. He’s also been a beaten finalist at Wimbledon. Not to mention his thrilling bronze medal with Marcus Daniell at the Tokyo Olympics – the first NZers to win tennis medals at the Olympics since the legend that was Tony Wilding all the way back in 1912... so long ago that he was competing for Australasia. Before Aotearoa ever had an Olympic team.
These are his men’s doubles results at all the grand slams since his French Open triumph in 2017...
2022 Aussie Open: Quarter-Finals w/Tim Peutz (3-1)
2021 US Open: Round of 64 w/Tim Puetz (0-1)
2021 Wimbledon: Round of 64 w/Tim Puetz (0-1)
2021 Roland Garros: Round of 32 w/John Peers (1-1)
2021 Aussie Open: Round of 16 w/John Peers (2-1)
2020 Roland Garros: Round of 32 w/John Peers (1-1)
2020 US Open: Round of 16 w/John Peers (1-1)
2020 Aussie Open: Round of 16 w/John Peers (2-1)
2019 US Open: Round of 32 w/Raven Klaasen (1-1)
2019 Wimbledon: Semi-Finals w/Raven Klaasen (4-1)
2019 Roland Garros: Round of 64 2/Raven Klaasen (0-1)
2019 Aussie Open: Quarter-Finals w/Raven Klaasen (3-1)
2018 US Open: Round of 32 w/Raven Klaasen (1-1)
2018 Wimbledon: Beaten Finalists w/Raven Klaasen (5-1)
2018 Roland Garros: Round of 16 w/Raven Klaasen (2-1)
2018 Aussie Open: Round of 64 w/Raven Klaasen (0-1)
2017 US Open: Round of 64 w/Ryan Harrison (0-1)
2017 Wimbledon: Quarter-Finals w/Ryan Harrison (3-1)
2017 Roland Garros: CHAMPIONS w/Ryan Harrison (6-0)
Overall he has a 45-30 record at GS events. Last year he and Tim Puetz won the ATP Masters 1000 in Paris, those Masters 1000 events (there are nine per year) constituting the most prestigious titles outside of the four majors. Overall he’s won 16 ATP tour events as a doubles player. Just wanted to point some of this out, you know? Respect is earned, after all.