Understanding, Empathy & Nurturing
The Olympics are upon us, Football Ferns & DroneGate, NRLW, Aotearoa Kiwis, NBL final preview, Blackcaps Test depth & more
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The Breakers Are No Longer Coached By Mody Maor (Basketball)
How Have Those NZ Breakers Next Star Lads Been Tracking Since Their NBA Drafts? (Basketball)
Why Aren't The New Zealand Breakers Signing New Zealand Players? (Basketball)
Exploring Another New Low For The New Zealand Women's Cricket Team In ODI Series Sweep vs England (Cricket)
Exploring Another New Low For The New Zealand Women's Cricket Team In T20 Series Sweep vs England (Cricket)
Five Funky Movers In The 2024/25 Domestic Cricket Contracts (Cricket)
Catching Up On How The Wellington Phoenix Offseason’s Been Going (Football)
Aotearoa at the 2024 Oceania U19 Men’s Championship (Football)
Flying Kiwis – July 23 (Football)
OlyWhites at the 2024 Paris Olympics: Getting The W vs Guinea (Football)
Football Ferns at the 2024 Paris Olympics: DroneGate vs Canada (Football)
Breaking Down The New NRLWahine Players For 2024 (Rugby League)
NRLWahine Spotlight: Round One Basic Breakdown (Rugby League)
Kiwi-NRL Spotlight: Jordan Riki Keeps Building With Broncos (Rugby League)
Aotearoa Warriors Diary: Youngster Report Part Two (Rugby League)
27fm Weekly Playlist: July 26 (Music)
Scotty’s Word
Busy Olympics phase coming up this weekend. Below is most of the kiwi action up until Monday morning when Women's Sevens starts, which is notable on my beat because Tyla King and Stacey Waaka are both locked in for NRLW after the Olympics. King is entering her second season with Dragons and Waaka is preparing for her first season with Broncos so it will be pretty crazy to see these two playing in NRLW ... days, maybe a week or two, after playing Sevens at the Olympics.
Men's Rowing - Tom Mackintosh: 27th - 7pm
Equestrian - Clarke Johnstone: 27th - 7:30pm
Equestrian - Tim Price: 27th - 7:30pm
Equestrian - Jonelle Price: 27th - 7:30pm
Equestrian - Team: 27th 7:30pm
Rowing - Emma Twigg: 27th - 8:12pm
Swimming - Erika Fairweather: 27th - 9pm
Swimming - Hazel Vanessa Ouewehand: 27th - 9pm
Swimming - Eve Thomas: 27th - 9pm
Rowing - Men Doubles: 27th - 9:30pm
Tennis - Women Doubles: 27th - 10pm
Rowing - Women Doubles: 27th - 10pm
Cycling - Kim Cadzow: 28th - 12:30am
Sevens - Men: 28th - 12:30m
Kayak - Luuka Jones: 28th - 2am
Cycling - Laurence Pithie: 28th - 2:23am
Hockey - Men: 28th - 3:30am
Kayak - Luuka Jones: 28th - 4:10am
Surfing - Billy Stairmand: 28th - 5am
Football - Men: 28th - 5am
Surfing - Saffie Vette: 28th - 9:48pm
Equestrian - Team: 28th - 8:30pm
Rowing - Women Pair: 28th - 8:30pm
Equestrian - Clarke Johnstone: 28th - 8:30pm
Equestrian - Tim Price: 28th - 8:30pm
Equestrian - Jonelle Price: 28th - 8:30pm
Rowing - Men Pair: 28th - 9pm
Swimming - Lewis Clareburt: 28th - 9pm
Swimming - Erika Fairweather: 28th - 9pm
Swimming - Kane Follows: 28th - 9pm
Rowing - Women Pair: 28th - 9:30pm
Tennis - Women Doubles: 28th - 10pm
Sailing - Veerle ten Have: 28th - 10:13pm
Rowing - Women Four: 28th - 10:30pm
Rowing - Men Four: 28th - 10:50pm
Sailing - Men Foil: 28th - 11:43pm
Cycling - Sammie Maxwell: 29th - 12:10am
Gymnastics - Georgia-Rose Brown: 29th - 12:50am
Sailing - Women 49er: 29th - 1:35am
Sailing - Men 49er: 29th - 1:45am
Football - Women: 29th - 3am
Hockey - Men: 29th - 3:30am
I'm also keeping close tabs on Black Sticks hockey but they have a difficult start to their campaign with games against India and Belgium this weekend, followed by games against Argentina and Australia early next week. New Zealand are underdogs in all four of those games and the best chance of victory will be against India which could spark some confidence. By the time they have an easier game against Ireland, NZ will probably have no chance of cracking the quarter-finals.
Billy Stairmand and Saffi Vette start their surfing event on Sunday morning. This is being held in Tahiti at Teahupo'o and, as a surfing novice, I reckon this is the craziest wave in the world. There was some drama about the Olympics taking over Teahupo'o and the impact this will have on the reef/surrounding environment, so hopefully some respect is shown to the local community.
The gist of the Teahupo'o swell is that lots of water moves from the depths of the Pacific Ocean to a reef where the depth is half a metre, maybe one metre. All that energy creates a freaky wave and with such a powerful wave breaking over shallow reef, falling off the surfboard usually results in all sorts of scrapes, scratches and gashes.
Before touching on NRLW, here is a small slice of the young wahine from NZ who are playing in the NSW Women's Premiership right now...
NRLW started last night with a 12-10 win for Knights over Roosters. That's a lovely result because the team with lots of Aotearoa wahine defeated a Roosters team that only had Kiwi Ferns Otesa Pule and Mya Hill-Moana. Knights had their full crew of NRLWahine with the first outings for Isabella Waterman and Grace Kukutai (from Super Rugby) throwing up some funky ‘welcome to NRLW’ stat lines...
Shanice Parker: 8 runs - 65m @ 8.1m/run, 2 tackle breaks, 9 tackles @ 81.8%
Abigail Roache: 1 try, 10 runs - 86m @ 8.6m/run, 1 tackle break, 12 tackles @ 60%
Isabllea Waterman: 7 runs - 35m @ 5m/run, 2 tackles @ 66.6%
Laishon Albert-Jones: 15 runs - 100m @ 6.6m/run, 3 tackle breaks, 22 tackles @ 91.6%
Nita Maynard: (27mins) 6 runs - 54m @ 9m/run, 3 tackle breaks, 14 tackles @ 87.5%
Grace Kukutai: (16mins) 1 run - 2m @ 2m/run, 6 tackles @ 85.7%
Roache is one of my favourite NRLWahine and her class has boosted Kiwi Ferns. Expect Roache to be one of the best centres in NRLW and as Kiwi Ferns have plenty of centres playing NRLW, Roache's versatility is an asset.
NRLWahine named in centres for round tahi...
Shanice Parker, Abigail Roache (Knights), Annessa Biddle (Sharks), Mele Hufanga (Broncos), Rosie Kelly (Eels), Niall Williams-Guthrie (Titans), Leianne Tufuga (Tigers), Cheyelle Robins-Reti, Mackenezie Wiki (Raiders)
Albert-Jones is also an excellent edge forward, who is the niece of Aotearoa Kiwis coach Stacey Jones. Jones has sussed out his staff for Kiwis footy later this year and while there is hearty mana in the likes of Adam Blair, Nathan Cayless and Stephen Kearney, the most notable staff member is Steve Price.
Not the Steve Price you're thinking of, but a current Sharks assistant coach and member of Michael Maguire's Kiwis coaching staff. Price played a sneaky role in a gritty Aotearoa Kiwis defence and his planning around this was apparently impeccable, which worked well with Maguire. The Kearney role is also intriguing because he was apparently involved last year (when Kiwis and Kiwi Ferns finished with wins over Australia) with Jones saying:
“I saw what Steve did in the campaign last year, the connection he created by giving the group a good understanding of what playing for the Kiwis means"
There has always been a weird Kiwis culture wrinkle. When they have leaders who are driving a winning vibe, they win. Half the time they have done the opposite though with touring dramas, big losses to Australia and David Kidwell's horrible 2017 World Cup campaign ... in Aotearoa. NZ Kiwis wiggle between extremes and it would be nice if they maintained a steady level of performance, as well as building an environment that welcomes everyone.
Kidwell's 2017 vibe pushed various Polynesians out of Aotearoa Kiwis footy. Maguire's vibe brought everyone together and this was evident last year as Samoans like Moses Leota, Nelson Asofa-Solomona and Fa'amanu Brown were proud to represent Aotearoa as kiwi-usos. Hopefully Jones is busy connecting with eligible players and Kearney has a hefty role to play here as 'Culture and Leadership Advisor'.
This is especially funky after the NZ-A squad last year because there lots of talented youngsters with eligibility options. Storm players Jack Howarth and Joe Chan played for NZ-A last year, along with Benjamin Te Kura who worked through the Queensland system with Howarth. Chan is eligible for NZ, Australia, Samoa and France. Raiders forward Trey Mooney also played for NZ-A after playing NSW U19s having been born and raised in Australia.
Deine Mariner, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Ali Leiataua could opt for Samoa. As I laid out in this Niche Cast, I'm pretty confident that Leka Halasima will play for Tonga consistently. All the Kiwi-NRL/NRLWahine stuff is important because it highlighted where these players come from in Aotearoa, but it's rude to expect them to all choose Aotearoa Kiwis/Kiwi Ferns when it's just as fun to see them play for Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Cook Islands.
The vibe I get from Kiwis/Kiwi Ferns is that all cultures are welcome and celebrated under the Aotearoa umbrella. The embrace of different cultures is a lovely Aotearoa thing and it's something that Australia doesn't do as well, while players need to be Samoan to represent Samoa as an example. All of which requires understanding, empathy and nurturing so hopefully Jones/Kearney are laying those foundations.
Whenever you are reading this - Tigers have some funky Kiwi-NRL wrinkles for their game vs NZ Warriors on Friday night. Isaiah Papali'i and Reuben Porter are both Te Atatu juniors returning to Auckland, while Mt Wellington junior Starford To'a comes back to Auckland for his first game since round 10.
As per our Subscriber Pod, below are 18 players who I have in the Blackcaps Test Mix for their Asia adventures. The Subscriber Pod is a bonus available to those with a paid Substack subscription and to the Patreon whanau. Please consider helping us out with either option or Buy Me A Coffee. Each option is a couple dollars and it is a massive help in funding our mahi, with a bonus podcast every week. A couple dollars from you goes a long way for us so cheers to everyone keeping The Niche Cache on track.
Blackcaps will probably name squads of 15 players so there is some surplus here but across the three series these 18 players could be called upon...
Kane Williamson, Tom Latham, Devon Conway, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Glenn Phillips, Will Young, Tom Blundell (wk), Mitch Hay (wk), Michael Bracewell, Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi, Ajaz Patel, Tim Southee, Matt Henry, Will O'Rourke, Ben Sears, Ben Lister
Tests in India (one vs Afghanistan) and Sri Lanka will showcase the Blackcaps depth of spinners. This will also limit the seamers involved and I doubt the trio of O'Rourke, Sears, Lister will be selected in the same squad. Nathan Smith, Zak Foulkes and Dean Foxcroft are emerging Test cricketers who could enter the equation but the seam of Smith and Foulkes probably won't be needed in these Tests, while Foxcroft is a handy batter/spinner.
Lister is a lefty seamer who will enter the Test mix soon. Giving Hay the nod as a backup wicket-keeper is the funkiest selection here, but he is the best young wicket-keeper who can benefit from overseas tours in tricky conditions. As always, the fact that I can build a pool of 20+ players (Jacob Duffy, Cole McConchie, Cam Fletcher offer veteran mahi) is another example of Aotearoa's cricketing depth.
NZ is currently third in the World Test Championship (3-3 with 50% win rate) behind India and Australia, with the three Tests vs India their next fixtures. Gritty draws or even better, a win or two in India would be fabulous and keep Blackcaps near the top of the ladder.
Since the start of 2021, Blackcaps have three wins, four draws and five losses outside NZ. They had a draw and a loss in India after WTC glory in 2021, two draws in Pakistan (2022/23) and a loss then a win in Bangladesh last year. That's one win, three draws and two losses in the Asian region during this period. Not fantastic but not terrible either.
Neil Wagner has picked up a gig with Durham for County Championship and the One-Day Cup. The One-Day Cup has started and I’ll try my best to keep track of the kiwis involved there in these crazy sporting times. Tom Bruce whacked 16 runs @ 123sr in Lancashire’s first game … vs Durham.
One other idea: T20 competitions aren’t eating up international cricket, they eat up each other. There are a bunch of T20 competitions being played right now and they are all competing against each other for overseas talent, which is diluting each competition. With this in mind, I’ve come around to loving the Super Smash which exists in its own bubble with few (mostly women) overseas players and serves as a celebration/development farm for kiwi cricketers.
White Ferns coach Ben Sawyer started his Birmingham Phoenix campaign in The Hundred with a loss (featuring Sophie Devine and Suzie Bates). Apparently that's Sawyer's 11th loss in a row with Birmingham and as per my comrade's table of Sawyer excellence; he has a 2-14 record in The Hundred and WPL since the start of 2023.
Add that to his 7-15 record in T20Is with NZ since the start of 2023, which slides to 2-11 in T20Is since November 1st 2023.
Musical jam...
Wildcard’s Notebook
10 Things About This Canadian Olympic Drone Drama
They really didn’t need any insider information to beat a nation that they haven’t lost to since 1987. And even if they did, it didn’t work because they couldn’t stop Mackenzie Barry from scoring a set-piece banger. Madness that they would compromise themselves like this... though we’ve since learned this was regular behaviour from the Canadians.
Flying drones over people in public is literally illegal in France and many other European nations. This has been the case for a few years due to privacy and safety reasons. It’s also been a hot topic across the wider Olympics – the French prime minister reckons they’ve been intercepting six drones per day filming footage (mostly belonging to tourists, rather than competitors). There’s no way they didn’t know this was a dodgy act.
The drone operator, Joseph Lombardi, was with the team as a “non-accredited member”, according to one press statement, and an “unaccredited analyst” according to another. His job was to report to assistant coach Jasmine Mander – both of whom were sent home from the event by the Canadian authorities. Mander wasn’t directly involved but there were texts between her and Lombardi that suggested she may have known what was happening therefore she was questioned by police. No charges for Mander, but Lombardi got slapped with an eight-month suspended jail sentence. We’re talking very illegal activities here, not grey area stuff.
Coincidentally, Jasmine Mander’s brother Amal Mander... is a physiotherapist with the Football Ferns, having been on several tours earlier on in the Klimkova era until they hired a full-timer in the job. But she’s on maternity leave so Mander was summoned back for the Olympics. There was supposed to be a wholesome family reunion in France... until Jasmine Mander got expelled.
The police caught Lombardi in the act when he retrieved the drone. They promptly arrested him, holding him in custody for 48 hours before he appeared before a judge. During that time they searched his hotel room and confiscated the footage which proved that he’d recorded multiple training sessions.
The original NZ Football statement only mentioned one session being compromised but after the police got involved, and the bloke in question admitted to everything, the second incident was alluded to in one of the Canadian Soccer statements... which seemed to catch NZF by surprise having only actually been aware of one instance.
Funnily enough, the Canadian men’s team were on the other end of something like this at the Gold Cup back in 2021 when John Herdman was still the coach. Ahead of a crunch game against Honduras, Herdman cancelled a training session after spotting a drone flying overhead. The origin of the drone was never determined (and was probably just a local hobbyist).
John Herdman used to coach the Football Ferns. Back then, Bev Priestman (the Canada coach embroiled in all this) was also involved in NZ Football, spending four years within the organisation and working her way up to the equivalent of the women’s football technical director role. Priestman is literally married to a former Football Ferns international: Emma Humphries.
Woah but hold on a minute because the Canadian journos have been hard at work on this story and it seems that evidence has been uncovered of repeated instances of drone scouting dating back at least three years, possibly further, from the Canadian team. As a result, Priestman has now been suspended and sent home too. Actually kinda proud to now say that the Footy Ferns were the ones that snapped them.
Priestman and the two other staffers being axed were both measures taken by the Canadian authorities. There is still an investigation to be conducted by FIFA about the incident. NZ Football asked for Canada not to be awarded any points that they get from the match but that request never got resolved before the game took place. Canada Soccer is also conducting an independent review. We definitely have not heard the end of this.
Matt Dibley-Dias is heading to Northampton Town. Folks in England are crediting that scoop to some bloke from The Mirror but actually our mate YoungHeart got there first. Come to think of it, there’s a decent chance it was Northampton Town not Fulham who withheld MDD from the Olympic squad.
He’ll join Nik Tzanev at his new club after the All Whites keeper signed with the Northampton Town on a free transfer a few weeks back. MDD has been captaining the Fulham U21s but he’s soon to age out of that team so it’s time to get some senior football – with an eye on cracking Fulham’s Premier League squad when he gets back. Hopefully the All Whites too at some stage (strong performances in League One would just about do it, regardless of the Fulham situation).
The Breakers announced their second import this week: 2.08m tall American centre Freddie Gillespie, who is 27 years old and played 29 NBA games for the Toronto Raptors and Orlando Magic. Since then he’s had a couple seasons with Bayern Munich in Germany – a former club of Coach Petteri Koponen and also where they recruited Zylan Cheatham from last year – and most recently had some success with Crvena zvezda in Serbia. He’s a defensive-minded big who will absolutely not be shooting regular three-pointers. He joins the returning Parker Jackson-Cartwright with one more import yet to be added, probably a second ball-handling option. They also still need another local player, and will surely add a Next Star too.
The presence of Gillespie likely means Jonah Bolden playing more at the four position (as was kinda expected anyway). More to the point it confirms that Sam Mennenga won’t be a starter so the only kiwi on the main roster won’t even be getting very many minutes.
It’s so tiresome. I churned out a big article about this yesterday which seems to be getting some traction, hopefully more people are recognising what’s going on. There are always a few jokers in the comments trying to argue, for some pessimistic reason, that NZ players aren’t good enough or that the Breakers have no moral requirement to sign NZers. The first idea is pathetic when you look at the trajectory of Aotearoa basketball. The second idea I at least accept is a legitimate one even though I completely disagree with it. If a sports team isn’t going to represent its fans, not even half-heartedly, then what’s the point?
It begins with ownership. It ends with ownership. The Breakers’ main owner has had his fingerprints on team recruitment since day one and the only season in which they were successful was the season in which he was the least influential. We’re talking about a bloke who turned up and changed the team’s colours to light blue and hot pink to mirror the NBA team that he played a total of three minutes for back in 2005-06. They like to talk about club heritage (when it suits) but Mika Vukona’s number remains unretired... in fact they even let RJ Hampton wear it for the half-season he popped by for. Luckily, every other NBL franchise respects kiwi players so there are plenty of other options out there for kiwi hoops fans.
Also, right as the Olympics begin, we’ve got a Canterbury Rams vs Auckland Tuatara NBL grand final happening on Sunday afternoon. These two have been the best teams all season, making for a fitting grand final. Both also survived some very tough semi-finals. Rams with the double OT against Taranaki. Tuatara holding off Franklin thanks to Corey Webster’s fourth-quarter heroics. Webster who was part of the Rams team that won the championship last season, if you recall.
These two teams met twice during the regular season with the away team winning each time.
Canterbury 99-111 Auckland (14 April)
MJ Walker scored 41 points for CAN, one of the highest individual efforts of the whole season. He shot 12/26 for those points, including an eye-opening 8/20 from deep. Twenty three-point attempts!
Taylor Britt chipped in with 18 points while Kaia Isaac scored 11 off the bench. Walter Brown shot 4/4 from deep for 12 points (yet somehow was a -30 plus/minus).
The Tuatara were led by 33 points, 13 rebounds, 7 assists for Rob Loe, and 31 points (11/12 FG) for Tom Vodanovich. Corey Webster also scored 25 pts that day.
Auckland shot 56% from threes and out-rebounded their opponents by +13.
Immediately after this game, the Rams went on a 16-game winning streak.
Auckland 83-86 Canterbury (9 June)
This was part of that winning streak, with Taylor Britt leading the way scoring 25 points (10/15 FG) with 6 assists. Lachie Olbrich – the 2024 MVP – didn’t play the first game and had 14 points (6/17) with 8 rebounds in the second. Walter Brown made his only three so he’s 5/5 from deep against the Tuatara this year.
Four different Tuatara starters scored between 15-19 in this game and Rob Loe was the exception. Only 7 points on 3/11 shooting with 8 rebounds and 5 assists. Loe was 2023 MVP so the centre battle in the final is between the two most recent recipients. Loe smashed them without Olbrich around but with Olbrich he had his only single-digit scoring game of the entire season. These two and Sam Froling are the only players who averaged 20p/10r this year.
This time the Rams bossed the boards with a +14 advantage, while a more understandable 32% three-point shooting from the Tuatara saw them fall to defeat.
Musical Jam...