The Vicinity
Blackcaps T20 trends, NZ Warriors notes, Wellington Phoenix records, NRLW singings, ALW numbers, domestic football roundup & more
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Kiwi-NRL Spotlight: The Zyon Maiu'u Debut For NZ Warriors (Rugby League)
Kiwi-NRL Spotlight: Alec MacDonald The Kiwi Stormer (Rugby League)
Reflecting On The Wellington Phoenix Women’s First Crop Of Import Players (Football)
Macey Fraser Signs With Utah Royals: A Unique Journey, A Record Fee & Wellington Phoenix Pathways (Football)
The Wellington Phoenix A-League Women’s 2023-24 Season In Review (Football)
Blackcaps vs Pakistan T20 Series Debrief (Cricket)
27fm Weekly Playlist: April 26 (Football)
Scotty’s Word
NZ Warriors couldn't get an Anzac Day win but they are Under 17 Harold Matthews Cup champions and grabbed an U21 Jersey Flegg win over Panthers. NZW also played Panthers in NSW Cup where they had a draw and all three levels feature funky wrinkles...
The best nugget to impress your friends with is still how NZW have recruited five young halves from Australia. Jack Thompson played for the U17 team and appears to made a strong impact on that team after leaving Knights mid-season. Luke Hanson looks comfortable in NSW Cup and he is being eased through this transition; Hanson didn't have a kick against Panthers while Taine Tuaupiki had 13 and Paul Roche had four.
Jesse Soric, Tallan Egan and Jett Cleary round out the quartet. NZW also have local lads in the halves across each grade with Rotorua's Tyson Hansen playing alongside Thompson in U17s, while Hanson's promotion to NSW Cup saw Tokoroa's Cassius Cowley partner Marist junior Caleb Laiman.
Roache dabbled in halves mahi for NSW Cup and they were ravaged by injuries during this game, including an issue for Adam Pompey who started at edge forward. Pompey goes alright at edge forward and with Dylan Walker spending time on an edge vs Titans, perhaps Pompey is being brewed as edge cover.
If Pompey plays centre in NSW Cup, then Sio Kali isn't getting game time and this lad should be playing reserve grade every week. Kali is 18-years-old...
3 games, 1 try, 2 try assists, 15 tackle breaks, 2 linebreaks, 27 tackles @ 93%, 116m/game.
Makaia Tafua is also shining with big minutes at hooker and the quality of Kiwi-NRL juniors coming out of Christchurch is getting crazy. Tafua is Jersey Flegg eligible and played 65mins vs Panthers in NSW Cup with another youngster Jacob Auloa (SG Ball eligible) out of action. These two have legit NRL potential for NZW and they will offer cover for Wayde Egan over the next few seasons.
Tafua is a Linwood junior and fellow Linwood junior Lennox Tuiloma was awarded Player of the Match for NZW U17s in their final. Halswell junior Tanner Stowers-Smith has exploded in the last two games for NSW Cup...
vs Dragons: 47mins, 14 runs - 158m @ 11.2m/run, 16 tackles @ 89%
vs Panthers: 52mins, 12 runs - 143m @ 11.9m/run, 21 tackles @ 87%
Stowers-Smith had 100+ running metres in one of six games prior to the last two outings. He played less than 40mins in the first two games and is now cruising above 42mins for six consecutive games.
As for the NZW in NRL...
NZW were 11th with a 5-5 record after round 10 last season. They are 12th with a 3-4-1 record this season after round eight so it will be interesting to see how this looks after round 10.
Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad averaged a career high 188m/game last season. This season he is averaging 288m/game.
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck is tackling at 83.15% efficiency which is his first season over 78%. He is also averaging 185m/game which is higher than his first three seasons with NZW and all of that footy was at fullback. Tuivasa-Sheck then went over 200m/game for his three seasons with NZW before departing but his current mahi is in the same vicinity.
Shaun Johnson has elevated from 524 kicking metres per game last season to 579km/game this season and is running more: 60m/game last season up to 83m/game. There has been a decrease in his tackling though going from 90.8% last season to 82.8% this season.
Tohu Harris loves footy: 152m/game and 95% tackling.
This is Mitchell Barnett's best season (debuted in 2015) with 153m/game and 95.08% tackling.
Let's update the NRLWahine signings...
Cheyelle Robins-Reti will return to Raiders, Tyla King will return to Dragons and Noaria 'Boss' Kapua will return to Eels. Dragons also have a couple development players in Trinity Tauaneai and Jessica Patea who are both Wainuimoata juniors who join Trinity's older sister Alexis at Dragons.
Cowboys: Autumn-Rain Stephens-Daly, Harata Butler
Broncos: Mele Hufanga, Gayle Broughton, Annetta Nu'uausala, Tafito Lafaele, Brianna Clark, Jasmine Fogavini, Stacey Waaka
Knights: Abigail Roache, Laishon Albert-Jones, Nita Maynard, Shanice Parker
Roosters: Amber Hall, Mya Hill-Moana, Otesa Pule, Tiana Davison
Tigers: Leianne Tufuga, Najvada George
Sharks: Annessa Biddle, Brooke Anderson, Pia Tapsell
Dragons: Tyla King, Alexis Tauaneai, Angelina Teakaraanga-Katoa, Raecene McGregor, Trinity Tauaneai, Jessica Patea
Eels: Noaria Kapua
Raiders: Cheyelle Robins-Reti, Apii Nicholls, Ash Quinlan, Felice Quinlan, Mackenzie Wiki, Madison Bartlett
Nathan Smith isn't playing this round of County Championship and Lancashire have a bye. Will Young and Blair Tickner aren't doing much of note this round either...
Nottinghamshire scored 400 runs and Young offered 5 runs.
Yorkshire hit 450/5 declared against Derbyshire and Tickner took 1w @ 3.5rpo in 22.2 overs.
Here are some Blackcaps T20 stat things since the start of 2023...
Highest Batting Strike-Rates
Tom Blundell: 168.4 (2inns)
Finn Allen: 163.8 (18inns)
Rachin Ravindra: 152.3 (12inns)
Kane Williamson: 145.6 (2inns)
Jimmy Neesham: 145.5 (14inns)
Mark Chapman: 142.5 (31inns)
Tim Seifert: 142.3 (21inns)
Highest Batting Averages (5+ innings)
Mark Chapman: 36.71
Glenn Phillips: 32.57
Finn Allen: 29.94
Tim Seifert: 28.31
Tom Latham: 27.71
Daryl Mitchell: 26.33
Jimmy Neesham: 24.6
Most Sixes
Finn Allen: 43
Mark Chapman: 30
Tim Seifert: 21
Daryl Mitchell: 20
Glenn Phillips: 18
Lowest Bowling Strike-Rate (5+ wickets)
Adam Milne: 14.4
Jimmy Neesham: 14.7
Tim Southee: 15
Ben Sears: 15.2
Kyle Jamieson: 15.6
Lockie Ferguson: 16.5
Lowest Economy Rates (10+ overs)
Will O'Rourke: 7.08rpo
Mitchell Santner: 7.09rpo
Michael Bracewell: 7.72rpo
Matt Henry: 7.82rpo
Ish Sodhi: 7.87rpo
TIm Southee: 7.87rpo
Lockie Ferguson: 7.95rpo
Musical jam…
Wildcard’s Notebook
The Wellington Phoenix fellas ended their regular season with a lovely 3-0 victory, beating Macarthur for the third time this season. Kosta Barbarouses and Tim Payne scored first half goals, then Oskar Zawada converted a late penalty. Interesting to see Zawada now on pen duty after Alex Rufer missed one last week. All good preparation for the finals.
Unfortunately Newcastle Jets weren’t able to do the job against Central Coast Mariners so we still don’t know if the Nix will finish first or second. Probably second, as it would require Adelaide United to win against CCM for the Phoenix to hold onto top spot. Even a draw won’t suffice. But that’s fine. Championship > Premiership.
What we do know is that the Elimination Finals will see Sydney FC (4) vs Macarthur (5), and Melbourne Victory (3) vs Melbourne City (6). Those are both this weekend. The highest ranked winner of those two matches will face the second-placed team, probably the Nix, and the lowest-ranked winner will face the Minor Prems, probably CCM. But yeah because of that catch-up game for the Mariners we can’t really draw too many conclusions from those standings just yet. Here’s how the Phoenix fared against the rest of the top six...
Central Coast Mariners
D 0-0 home (G16) / L 1-2 away (G24)
Melbourne Victory
D 1-1 away (G4) / D 1-1 home (G13) / W 1-0 home (G25)
Sydney FC
L 1-3 away (G10) / W 2-1 home (G22)
Macarthur
W 3-0 away (G8) / W 2-1 home (G18) / W 3-0 home (G27)
Melbourne City
W 1-0 home (G5) / L 0-1 away (G21)
Wellington Phoenix vs Top Six
12 G | 6 W | 3 D | 3 L | 16 GF | 10 GA | +6 GD | 21 PTS
Wellington Phoenix vs Bottom Six
15 G | 9 W | 5 D | 1 L | 26 GF | 16 GA | +10 GD | 32 PTS
Putting aside the Premiers Plate, which they could still win but probably won’t, it’s a lot easier to view this season in the light it ought to be seen. What began looking like a rebuilding year, in which there were genuine fears about wooden spoons (don’t let anyone convince you those were unfounded just because of how good they’ve been... we had no way of knowing that at the time when the only logical assumption was to expect them to struggle, at least at first)... ended up being the club’s best ever regular season campaign.
A club record league position (2nd)
A club record win tally (15)
A club record points tally (53)
A club record for fewest goals conceded (26)
A club record for goal difference (+16)
A fifth finals appearance in six seasons
Fourth-most goals scored in a campaign (42)
A first home finals game since 2014-15
And we’re still hoping for that first finals victory since 2011-12. While we’re at it, know that Finn Surman, Scott Wootton, and Alex Paulsen have now completed everpresent regular seasons. Each one of them played all 2430 possible minutes. Only nine players in the ALM managed that and three of them are from the Wellington Phoenix. That includes Danny Vukovic and Joshua Nisbet of Central Coast who haven’t yet played their last game so we’re assuming they don’t get rested. Could drop to just seven players, who knows? Nisbet is the only other non-goalkeeper to have played every available minute alongside Wootton and Surman. Interestingly, Dane Ingham only misses out by 45 minutes having been subbed on at half-time of one singular lone exception of a match.
Also I have been getting in the habit of writing Welly Nix yarns on Mondays but I’ve been slammed busy lately so that might have to wait until later in the week, seeing as they don’t play this weekend. That way I can incorporate the CCM result as well as the club awards night which are happening on Wednesday and Tuesday night respectively. We’ll see how it goes.
Melbourne City are into the A-League Women’s grand final after beating Newcastle Jets 6-0 across two legs. 3-0 away and 3-0 at home. The first leg (away) was a weird one as Hannah Wilkinson was named on the bench for the only time all season. But she was back in the eleven for the home leg and scored as City made relatively light work of their semi-final, setting up a meeting with Sydney FC in the decider. Rebekah Stott played all of both games. No surprises there as she chases her fifth ALW championship. She’s used to this... although Wilkie will have been relieved to make it through to the grand final having lost all three previous finals games in which she’s played (despite scoring three times in those matches). That includes missing a penalty in the shootout last year (as did teammate Katie Bowen - we don’t talk about that game around here).
Once again we will have a New Zealand presence in the ALW grand final. We were relying heavily on Melbourne City there as the only other NZer to make the finals was Georgia Candy as an injury replacement backup goalie for Melbourne Victory and she didn’t actually play. Hannah Wilkinson was one of the first two players named to the ALW All Stars last week (alongside Alex Chidiac). She’s scored four goals in four ALW finals games, plus this latest match was her 50th appearance for the club overall and in it she scored her 30th goal. Rebekah Stott is how 9-2-3 in career ALW finals games. Those two draws obviously went to penalty shootouts, with one win and one loss therein.
Most ALW Appearances By NZers
Rebekah Stott – 121
Liz Anton – 62
Mackenzie Barry - 50
Hannah Wilkinson - 50
Annalie Longo – 50
Grace Jale – 48
Ally Green – 48
Claudia Bunge – 45
Kate Taylor – 42
Paige Satchell – 40
(Tiebreaker is overall minutes played)
Most ALW Goals By NZers
Hannah Wilkinson – 30
Grace Jale – 12
Emma Kete – 11
Annalie Longo, Rebekah Stott – 7
Hannah Blake – 6
Emma Main, Chloe Knott, Ava Pritchard - 5
ALW Championships By NZers
Rebekah Stott – 4
Annalie Longo, Emma Kete, Claudia Bunge – 2
Ally Green, Katie Duncan – 1
I tried to predict the Blackcaps T20 World Cup squad in Friday’s newsletter and I missed out by one fella: Matt Henry got in ahead of Tim Seifert. No specialist wicket-keeper in the entire squad is quite a gamble (albeit in the format that most rewards big gambles). Devon Conway will be the gloveman and his backup in case of emergency will presumably be his opening partner Finn Allen (Glenn Phillips is a bowling maniac and a legendary fielder so let’s park the idea of him being a wickie in his earlier days). I also thought maybe Ben Sears would sneak in ahead of Matt Henry for the speedy x-factor but he’s included as a travelling reserve instead (there’s usually an injury during these tourneys so gotta be prepared). Adam Milne is out injured, if you’re wondering. Ankle surgery.
Also shame on youz who were calling for Tim Southee to be dropped. First off, experience is massive in these major tournaments. Second, while his recent summer was a bit sloppy his T20 form has been the exception to that (anyone remember when he took 4/25 against Pakistan in January?). Always important to rate these things format by format because bad form in one does not necessarily translate to bad form in another.
Tim Southee Since January 2022
Tests – 58 wickets @ 37.50 average (3.09 RPO)
ODI – 31 wickets @ 28.70 average (6.06 RPO)
T20I – 46 wickets @ 19.69 average (7.94 RPO)
That’s also why I was a tad surprised to see Matt Henry’s inclusion even though he’s been fantastic in T20s in recent times. That’s never been something to be found in his bag before at the international level. He’s only played 17 T20Is in a 10-year career, with 11 of those coming against Pakistan. Then again, it was Pakistan that knocked us out in the semis last time so that’s a specialist skill set.
Henry didn’t play a single T20I between 2017 and 2023... but in his last ten matches he has taken 13 wickets at 20.92 average with an economy rate of 7.77 runs per over. That’s top notch. I expect he’s outside the top eleven, especially in spinning conditions, but it’s still a risk to include him off the back of such a small sample size. He is hugely experienced in other formats though, including a couple of ODI World Cups so the tournament lifestyle ain’t new.
Domestic Footy Roundup
In the Men’s Northern League, Auckland City bounced back as they always do. A 1-0 loss to Bay Olympic left them scratching their heads having been unable to find a goal when they needed one... but they had no such troubles when Ryan de Vries popped up with a vintage 87th minute winner to end Western Springs’ perfect start. 2-1 to ACFC. Liam Gillion (32’) got the first goal, yet another for that bloke’s count, while Riley Manuel equalised on 68’. That meant no goal for Auckland City old boy Emiliano Tade who had scored in all six games before this one.
Auckland United enjoyed themselves winning 6-1 against West Coast Rangers. Joshua Tollervey and Oliver Middleton both got doubles… yet for all the youngsters on show in this game, gotta show some love for Hideto Takahashi who got things started for AU in the third minute. He’s 36 years old. And also Allan Pearce who scored WCR’s only goal (to briefly make it 2-1). He’s 41 years old. Class is permanent. Both those blokes are full internationals (granted, not recently).
Tauranga City drew 2-2 with East Coast Bays, as the latter scored through Guy-Frank Essome-Penda in stoppage time. Birkenhead were too good for Manurewa, winning 3-2 with Sam Philip amongst the scorers – his first of the season after joining from Christchurch United. Philip was the Golden Boot in the Southern League last year but didn’t really translate that into National League and was slow to get going in the Northerns.
Noooot a good week for the Waikato contingent though. Melville lost 4-0 at home to Eastern Suburbs after Ryan Noon was sent off in the 12th minute. Ryan Feutz and Jake Mechell each with doubles. Mechell has 11 goals already which puts him clear of Tade (9), Gillion (8), and Jonty Bidois (8) in the rankings. And Hamilton Wanderers lost 5-1 at home against Bay Olympic, the latter backing up that Auckland City win in style. Ibrahim Nadir scored a hatty.
No dramas in the Central League where everything went as expected, although only one team kept a clean sheet. That was Miramar Rangers who continue to set the pace in a resurgent 2024 season after a 6-0 win away to North Wellington. Give a hat-trick to Sam Mason-Smith in there. In fact, give him four goals. Wellington Olympic won 4-2 against the WeeNix. They were 4-0 up at half-time, though Gabriel Sloane-Rodrigues and Luke Supyk did pull back a couple goals right at the end. Two hombres with senior contracts… on that note, Isaac Hughes played this game on his return from injury, while Fin Conchie also started.
Napier City Rovers remain third after winning 3-1 against Island Bay. Two more goals to Oscar Faulds to keep him level with Lucas Meek of Western Suburbs... who also scored twice in a 3-1 win. Wests came from behind at half-time away to Petone, whose goal-scorer Brynn Sinclair also got sent off with twenty to play. And also Waterside Karori won 4-1 vs Stop Out. Tomas Alvarado with three of those goals.
Onwards to the Southern League where you’ll be shocked – SHOCKED – to read that Garbhan Coughlan was amongst the hat-trick ballers this week. Triples was best for him in a 5-1 win for Cashmere Technical away to Nelson Suburbs. If any of you are really into the funky details then know that Dauntae Mariner is playing for Nelson Suburbs these days – a Samoan international who happens to be Tim Cahill’s nephew. Born and raised in Aussie but spent some time at Blackburn Rovers as a teenager.
Christchurch United remain first having held serve with a 4-0 win away to FC Twenty11. Had them sweating at nil-all at the break then the goals began to flow, with Michael Hornsby scoring twice. Beyond that, Dunedin City Royals won 4-0 against Universities. DCR finally got their first win after a sluggish start, only took them five attempts. Plus there was a 1-1 draw between Selwyn United and Nomads, while Alex Meaclem’s 28th minute goal was the difference as Coastal Spirit beat Ferrymead Bays 1-0.
The Women’s Central League began this past weekend, where the top two sides last year represented the region in the National League so presumably the same thing will be true again in 2024. Those two teams were Wellington United and Waterside Karori. Neither side had any worries picking up victories. Karori beat Taradale 3-1, although they were one down at the break. Welly Utd won 2-0 away to Seatoun... you might be curious to know that Anna Green popped up on the teamsheet there. Elsewhere Moturoa drew 2-2 with Victoria Uni, and there was some drama as Petone beat Palmerston North Marist 2-1. PN Marist scored an 88th minute penalty to equalise but then Sydnie Williams scored a minute later to restore the lead.
And in the NRFL stuff up north, Auckland United had a great week winning 6-0 against Hibiscus Coast in the midweek and then chasing that with a 3-1 win vs West Coast Rangers. Charlotte Roche scored three times across those two games. That was WCR’s first loss after five straight wins, leaving AU as the only undefeated team in the division. Big statement win from United there. At least Hibiscus Coast rallied from their defeat to win 5-0 against Hamilton Wanderers (stink weekend for that club), Danica Urlich-Beech scored three times. Wanderers got a red card midway through.
There were upset results in the other two matches. Eastern Suburbs hosted Ellerslie on Anzac Day but fell to a 2-1 defeat. First win of the season for the Ponies, who were a National League side a year ago. Then Western Springs couldn’t hang on after scoring first away to Fencibles. Rosie Missen scored the winner in the 79th minute for a 2-1 victory. Missen previously played for West Ham and Newcastle over in England. Keeps that top four picture nice and interesting.
That’s enough of that, time for a song...