The Undeniable Top Tier
The Undeniable Top Tier
Winston Retires from All Whites, NRL Finals goodness (plus Redcliffe U21s), Joseph Parker vs Joe Joyce prep, WBBL & NZA cricket... plus Women's National League Team of the Week
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Reading Menu
2022 Women’s National League – Week One (Football)
Kiwi-NRL Spotlight: Marata Niukore Still Loves Rugby League (Rugby League)
All Whites vs Australia: Squad Yarns (Football)
The Quotable Steven Adams: 2021-22 Edition (Basketball)
Returning To The Suzie Bates Status-Quo (Cricket)
Scotty’s Word
Kiwi-NRL finals swing into the last four teams after Eels and Rabbitohs enjoyed dominant wins over Raiders and Sharks respectively. Eels will head up to Townsville to face Cowboys on Friday and I covered Marata Niukore's performance for Eels in a Kiwi-NRL Spotlight this morning, while Panthers vs Rabbitohs will be played in Sydney on Saturday.
Eels have been one of my favourite Kiwi-NRL teams for two years now and their crew of Niukore, Dylan Brown, Isaiah Papali'i and Makahesi Makatoa were fantastic once again. With Niukore and Papali'i departing at the end of this season, there is ample reason to jump on the Eels Kiwi-NRL wagon as all four of these lads have excelled in the Eels system.
Brown is the only Kiwi-NRL half left at this stage of the season and the 22-year-old from Whangarei continues his impeccable rise. There is more razzle dazzle in Brown's mahi this season but the best note to sum up his style of footy remains the basic run/tackle package; very few NRL halves come close to Brown's 125m/game and 610 tackles @ 93.4 percent.
That wraps up the Raiders run, allowing Joseph Tapine to rest after his best season of NRL footy. While Tapine and Jordan Rapana will be regular Aotearoa Kiwis starters at the World Cup, Matthew Timoko and Corey Harawira-Naera are hunting squad selection. Timoko should make the WC squad and could start at centre if Niukore is selected in the forwards, while Harawira-Naerea's versatility will be valuable in a tournament.
Sharks were also bumped out by Rabbitohs, leaving Braden Hamlin-Uele on the fringe of WC selection. Ronaldo Mulitalo and Briton Nikora are certain selections in the squad with Nikora behind Papali'i and Kenny Bromwich as edge forwards. Hamlin-Uele would have benefited from Sharks rolling deeper into finals footy as Kiwis have immense middle forward depth. Hamlin-Uele may miss out in favour of someone like Harawira-Naera ... or Greymouth's Griffin Neame who should be on the Cowboys bench again vs Eels.
New Plymouth's Makatoa is likely to be in the Cook Islands WC team and his experience in finals footy will be crucial for CI. Auckland's tokos Jason Taumalolo (Cowboys) and Siliva Havili (Rabbitohs) are leaders for Tonga and they will also benefit from finals footy, especially Manurewa junior Havili who will add much needed play-making to Tonga's spine.
Both Redcliffe teams are in grand finals after wins over the weekend.
Redcliffe had a 28-16 win over Burleigh in Queensland Cup with Warriors squad members Rocco Berry, Pride Petterson-Robati, Jackson Frei and Daejarn Asi playing. Redcliffe also had Setu Tu (Otahuhu) and Valynce Te Whare (Waikato) playing, both of whom are signed to Redcliffe's NRL squad for next season.
In his first year of rugby league after being scouted in Waikato rugby union, Te Whare has 12 tries in 13 games and 17 linebreaks. With 82 tackle busts from 157 touches, Te Whare averages 1.91 tackle busts per touch - bonkers.
Similar stats for Will Warbrick who joined Storm from All Blacks Sevens. While he didn't play for Storm, he played 14 games for Sunshine Coast with 10 tries, 14 linebreaks and 55 tackle busts.
Vaka Sikahele also made his debut for Burleigh against Redcliffe. Sikahele was in the 2020 Warriors SG Ball team and with limited spaces available at Warriors during the pandemic, Sikahele joined Gold Coast Titans. The Manurewa junior spent most of this season in Burleigh U21s alongside Kiwi-NRL juniors Isaac Matalavea-Booth (Manurewa), TJ Devery (Te Atatu), Sam McIntyre (Northcote) and Caleb Pese (Ellerslie).
Redcliffe U21s are the funkiest Warriors thing right now though and they enjoyed a 50-30 win over Central Queensland, sealing a grand final spot against Townsville. Ali Leiataua started at centre, Kina Kepu and Demitric Sifakula as props, Taniela Otukolo at hooker, Jacob Laban on an edge with Zyon Maiu'u and Valingi Kepu on the bench.
Redcliffe U21s are in the Queensland U21s final with seven Warriors juniors playing in the semi-final. Despite shifting to another country, these Warriors juniors are impacting winning and, as noted last Friday, many of these lads are far younger than the U21 bracket. This is not by chance as most of these lads were also in a winning SG Ball team (competing in the NSW) to signal their talent and and they keep impressing.
One interesting nugget: Sifakula played as a midfield back in 1st 15 for De La Salle College last year and is now starting prop for Redcliffe U21s.
Broncos and Titans have been knocked out of NRLWahine. This is the first time Broncos won't play finals footy in NRLW after they lost to Gayle Broughton's Eels, which is a massive bummer for Kiwi Ferns Annetta Nu'uausala, Amber Hall, Nita Maynard and Amy Turner. Same vibe with Titans who had Georgia Hale, Madison Bartlett, Kimiora Breayley-Nati and Roxy Murdoch in their loss to Roosters.
This is a weird pocket for Kiwi Ferns as two teams with plenty of Aotearoa mana are knocked out while Knights, Dragons and Eels usually have just one wahine from Aotearoa. Roosters are still the best team and their wahine (Leianne Tufuga, Raecene McGregor, Mya Hill-Moana) were rested this round.
Suzie Bates has snapped up a deal in Women's Big Bash League with Sydney Sixers. Bates joins Amelia Kerr (Brisbane Heat), Sophie Devine and Maddy Green (Perth Scorchers) as the only White Ferns involved in WBBL. Below are each of these players' WBBL records...
Suzie Bates: 70inns, 1,738 runs @ 28.49avg/104.32sr.
Sophie Devine: 92inns, 3,076 runs @ 39.94avg/128.81sr | 76w @ 22.28avg/7.15rpo.
Amelia Kerr: 19inns, 204 runs @ 14.57avg/110.27sr | 31w @ 20.16avg/5.80rpo.
Maddy Green: 25inns, 438 runs @ 17.52avg/104.28sr.
White Ferns start their series vs West Indies early tomorrow morning (Tuesday).
Aotearoa A have wrapped up their four-day series against India A (in India) and start the one-day series on Thursday. The first two four-dayers were draws before India won the last game by 113 runs and Northern's Joe Carter finished as Aotearoa's best batter, while Rachin Ravindra took the most wickets.
Carter finished fourth for Plunket Shield runs in 2019/20 and then first in 2020/21 before a dip last summer. Carter was one of three kiwi batters to pass 50 in these three games and with two centuries, Carter was the only kiwi to score 200+ runs. Carter averaged 40+ in three consecutive First Class summers prior to last season and now he's easily the best batter on tour in India.
Matthew Fisher was the only kiwi bowler who averaged below 30 with the ball as he only played one game and took 4w in the first innings of the final fixture. Fisher's mahi is more interesting than the spinners because he is among Aotearoa's fastest bowlers and at 22-years-old, Fisher enters the summer as an intriguing Northern prospect.
Fisher got most of his opportunities in Super Smash (5w @ 23avg) and Ford Trophy (7w @ 8.28avg) last summer. Northern lost the best Plunket Shield bowler from last season in Brett Randell (31w @ 14.83avg) to Central and this should present Fisher with more overs in all formats. While everything about Ben Sears' fast bowling is hostile/freaky, Fisher is smooth and doesn't appear to be bowling fast until the ball zips past the batter.
Keep rising…
Wildcard’s Notebook
Here’s some insight into Joseph Parker’s training and, most interestingly, into his relationship with Tyson Fury, courtesy of other regions of the internet...
Parker fights Joe Joyce this Sunday in Manchester with the vacant WBO Interim world title on the line. Which means that whoever wins (Joyce is ranked top challenger by WBO, Parker is second) would be next in line to fight Oleksandr Usyk for the WBO heavyweight title at some point in the future. Oddly that’s the only belt for which Parker is still ranked – even though Derek Chisora is on the WBC list and Parker beat him twice within the last year.
The WBC is held by Tyson Fury though, and Fury and Parker will never fight. They’re too close. Fury is apparently on the verge of taking on Anthony Joshua in a legendary British matchup... bit strange that the dude who lost all his belts to Usyk then lost again in the rematch gets to fight the other titleholder straight away but that’s because Usyk has a few injuries (and a humanitarian situation in his native Ukraine) to worry about, declaring that he doesn’t intend to fight again until 2023.
All of which leaves Parker and Joyce back in the queue but neither have a case for a title fight quite yet anyway so all goods. Some funky fights going on in the heavyweight division these days. Deontay Wilder is taking on Robert Helenius in mid-October. Wilder’s first bought since losing the trilogy fight to Tyson Fury a year ago. Helenius is the top ranked IBF challenger and second in the WBA. Andy Ruiz beat Luis Ortiz recently. Dillian Whyte’s name is getting thrown around for his next outing. Lots of shuffling of the decks.
One thing that trainer Andy Lee says in that vid about Parker was that when he first started working with him, he felt that Parker would disengage mentally too often in fights. Lapses in concentration or intensity. That kinda vibes with Parker suggesting that he’d lost a bit of passion for the sport towards the end of his affiliation with Kevin Barry. It definitely felt from afar like that partnership had gone stale in the ring.
There were hints of something fresh in the first Chisora fight, then there were some notable improvements in the second. This Joe Joyce bout has the potential to serve up one of his strongest performances yet. Joyce is two inches taller than Parker with longer reach and is likely to weigh in heavier. He’s also 14-0 compared to Parker’s 30-2 however JJ hasn’t fought the same calibre of dudes as JP has. Some good wins but this is a step up for him. Joyce is also seven years older – a reminder that even with 32 pro bouts to his name, 30yo Joe Parker is still pretty young in the sport by that standard.
Winston Reid has announced that he’ll be retiring from internationals after this week’s two games against Australia. Sadly this was not a surprise, I even predicted in my squad write-up on Friday that this could be the case. Ah but we’ll always have Slovakia 2010…
Despite all Danny Hay’s assertions each international window that Reid is as fit as he’s ever seen him... he also seemed to get injured at every possible opportunity. The NZers played four games at the Olympics in 2021: Reid went off injured in two of them and missed another one. It was the same injury all three games, he rushed back for the quarter, but still.
He managed to play three games at the OFC qualifiers in March, rotated for the dead rubber third group game and then rested for the final due to a yellow card risk - albeit in a relatively low key situation at centre-back for a team that didn’t concede in any of the games he played. Then what happened in the Costa Rica game? He got injured. Battled through until the 72nd minute then went off.
This was as a full-time international player too. He was released by West Ham more than a complete calendar year ago and has gone two straight transfer windows without finding a new club. Hard to know if that’s injury-enforced or lifestyle preference given there’s nobody doing injury update tweets for free agents. But it’s not a great indication that he’s someone with a long career left ahead of him. Reid is only 34 years old but more to the point has struggled for sustained fitness since busting his knee in his last West Ham appearance.
It’s a bummer but, like, what are you going to do? If the body can’t cope then fair enough. Dunno if that’s specifically the case for Reid, maybe he also wants to step out of the way now before a new World Cup qualifying cycle begins in the knowledge that he probably won’t be there at 38 years of age (at least not as a player, just sayin’). Plus there’s also the impending six-month hiatus of games coming for the All Whites. NZF are stretched too thin financially and priority has to be the women’s team ahead of their World Cup. On that note: if anyone reading this is willing to pay out of pocket for some more All Whites games then please do.
The NZF announcement makes no mention of any remaining club ambitions. That’s all up to him. He’s had a brilliant career either way. In my experience only Chris Wood and Ryan Nelsen can match him for achievements and despite what the old fellas claim there’s really only Wynton Rufer from previous generations with an undeniable case to be amongst that top tier.
Danny Hay’s employed a back three in five of his last seven games in charge, the other two being rotated teams (that third OFC game and the behind-closed-doors Oman game). Michael Boxall’s still got a few good years left in him and Nando Pijnaker and Bill Tuiloma are having career years so no worries there. But the cupboard is rather bare beneath them.
You’ve got a 34 year old Tommy Smith, currently injured. Tim Payne can play CB in a three no dramas but might also be needed at right back. Kyle Adams has gotten a maiden call-up for this series – he’s having another excellent USL season but probably needs to get up into the MLS level to be a regular international. Nikko Boxall just got a mutually release from the same team as Adams, wasn’t getting any games, which hopefully means something else on the cards for him.
Those are all the CBs who’ve been involved under Hay’s tenure. There are a few guys who could do a job there despite not being specialists. Marko Stamenic and Francis De Vries spring to mind (FDV is out for the year currently). Auckland City duo Adam Mitchell and Sam Brotherton have international experience. Finn Surman is captaining the U19s as we speak, the best CB option at the Nix. A few goodies over in the USA college system although those grads tend to be hit or miss with the next parts of their careers. George Stanger’s playing third tier in Scotland. Maybe someone like Adam Thomas over in Ireland comes into the mix – he played for Hay at Eastern Suburbs.
Things happen quickly in this sport though. Nobody saw Alex Greive being on the All Whites scene this time last year then suddenly he was starting the Costa Rica game. In six months when the All Whites finally re-emerge you never know who’ll have boosted it upwards.
And now for the blessed return of a favourite Substack feature…
WOMEN’S NATIONAL LEAGUE TEAM OF THE WEEK – ROUND 1
GK – Annie Foote (Central) – The Cantab keeper played against her old team and lost 3-0... but don’t be misled. Foote saved absolutely everything that she should have and a few that she probably shouldn’t have. In recent years this would have been a 5-0 or 6-0 loss for Central. Their new goalie was a big reason why it was only three.
RB – Manaia Elliott (Auckland United) – Couple hearty rivals for this spot, including Maggie Pedersen and Olivia Page. Elliott gets the nod though. Pretty sure she wasn’t even with this team for the winter season (she’s a Melville girl) but you wouldn’t know it from how she played. One of the smaller/younger ones out there but an absolute menace in the challenge bringing some ruthlessness to that AUFC defence... not sure how she avoided a yellow card, count that as another factor in her favour.
CB – Lily Jervis (Western Springs) – So strong at the back, a top notch leader, with a really impressive ability on the ball as well... as evidenced by the way she’d step up in possession and the long range assist she provided for her team’s opening goal. Immense.
CB – Jayden Watts (Capital) – Equal praise to her CB partner Zoe Barrott because between them they actually limited a really dangerous Eastern Suburbs team better than most could have expected. Just a pity all their fantastic open play defending was spoiled by a couple goals conceded from corners and then a red card that opened the gates.
LB – Suya Haering (Northern Rovers) – Pretty sure the young Rovers fullback is gonna get a few of these nods. Great left foot, good defensive instincts, technically really good... only 17 years old but there are Ali Riley vibes about her game. That’s no small praise.
CM – Alosi Bloomfield (Auckland United) – Lots of midfield candidates for this spot. Dani Canham was close with a goal and a number of good chances. Rose Morton was good but her team got thrashed. Emma Pijnenburg, Saki Yoshida, and Ruby Nathan were also in contention. But I just love watching someone like Bloomfield who can body her way into possession. So dominant in the tackle. Good passer too. The way she broke up the play in the middle was pretty crucial in her team hanging in there to get that draw vs Northern Rovers.
CM – Tayla O’Brien (Eastern Suburbs) – She can captain this TOW because nobody played better than Tayla O’Brien this week. Commanding in the midfield with a workrate to make anyone envious... oh yeah and she scored four goals too. The word ‘influential’ doesn’t do her justice.
CM – Kate Loye (Canterbury United) – Toss up between her and teammate Whitney Hepburn but WH was subbed early-ish so Loye can have it. Also while both Cantabs midfielders were defensively excellent with plenty of great distribution on show and each scored a goal apiece... Loye’s goal was better. Whipped in from range with that trusty left foot. Banger.
FW – Lara Colpi (Western Springs) – Did a solid job in midfield in the first half vs Southern but moving her to the right wing at half-time was decisive. Colpi offered heaps of width, stretching the United defence, and made the most of that space with two beautiful assists. Both times she took her time from the byline before picking out the perfect low cross. Fine work.
FW – Milly Clegg (Auckland United) – She needed a few chances to get it sizzling, her sharp footwork and balance meaning she can work a shot from pretty much any situation but too many of those shots were straight at the keeper or off target. But when she drilled one right it flew in to earn her team a point. That’s how the best striker’s operate. Clegg’s gonna be a superstar.
FW – Sofia Garcia (Western Springs) – The American import scored a hat-trick for Springs in their hefty win over Southern. One running in behind the defence, one sharp header from a cross, and one first-time belter from outside the box. How’s that for an array of finishing prowess?