Weak Dispositions
NZ cricketing shambles, National League football, Jahrome Hughes & James Fisher-Harris, NRLW, NZ Breakers, and more
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Three Themes Of New Zealand Warriors Recruitment & Development Ahead Of The 2025 NRL Season (Rugby League)
2025 New Zealand Women Warriors Signings Tracker: Second Wave (Rugby League)
2024 Men’s National League Season Preview (Football)
2024 Women’s National League Season Preview (Football)
Flying Kiwis – September 24 (Football)
White Ferns Trends From The T20I Series Sweep Defeat in Australia (Cricket)
Scotty’s Word
In last Friday's newsletter I highlighted how New Zealand Cricket was in the midst of a heavy losing streak, which has morphed from 'just a freaky fact and not a need for alarm' into 'wtf is going on?' after the Blackcaps capitulation in Sri Lanka. They rolled with the same team who lost the first Test, conceded 602/5 declared, and scored 88 runs all out in response.
There were signs of life in the second innings with Devon Conway (61), Tom Blundell (60), Glenn Phillips (78), and Mitchell Santner (67) hitting 50+ scores (Santner was the only Blackcaps batter to have an innings of 100+ deliveries in this Test). Blackcaps were more aggressive with their batting in the second innings and everyone loves 'positive intent' but this smelled like batters who couldn't do anything else aside from trying to attack.
This rounds out a horrible period for NZ Cricket. Typical White Ferns things include winning warm up games that don't matter, as they did vs South Africa in the lead up to the T20 World Cup, so I'm leaving warm-uppy games out ... just like I'm leaving out their 10 x T20I losing streak. Here's the last two weeks for three NZ Cricket teams...
Blackcaps vs Sri Lanka: Loss, loss
White Ferns vs Australia: Loss, loss, loss
NZ Development Women: Loss, loss, loss, loss
Here is a yearly Test breakdown for Blackcaps…
(wins-draws-losses)
2018: 4-2-1
2019: 4-1-3
2020: 5-1
2021: 3-1-2
2022: 2-1-5
2023: 4-1-2
2024: 2-4
Blackcaps World Test Championship stats....
Batting
Kane Williamson: 757 runs @ 50.4avg/51sr
Rachin Ravindra: 599 runs @ 49.9avg/56sr
Glenn Phillips: 445 runs @ 37avg/81sr
Daryl Mitchell: 371 runs @ 28.5avg/49sr
Tom Latham: 368 runs @ 23avg/45sr
Tom Blundell: 214 runs @ 15.2avg/63sr
Devon Conway: 185 runs @ 15.4avg/45sr
Tim Southee: 139 runs @ 10.6avg/74sr
Mitchell Santner: 138 runs @ 23avg/56sr
Matt Henry: 138 runs @ 23avg/110sr
Will Young: 135 runs @ 27avg/36sr
Bowling
Matt Henry: 23w @ 16.9avg/2.8rpo
Glenn Phillips: 22w @ 24.5avg/3.1rpo
Ajaz Patel: 22w @ 28.1avg/3.3rpo
Will O'Rourke: 19w @ 19.7avg/3.1rpo
Mitchell Santner: 13w @ 31.2avg/2.6rpo
Tim Southee: 12w @ 57.1avg/3.1rpo
Rachin Ravindra: 7w @ 31.4avg/2.8rpo
Ben Sears: 5w @ 32.2avg/4.8rpo
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Melbourne Storm and Penrith Panthers are back in the NRL Grand Final. Two fascinating organisations for folks to learn from, and both are led by two of Aotearoa's best rugby league players. Jahrome Hughes is from Wellington and James Fisher-Harris is from Hokianga in Northland. Here are some key details about their mahi this year...
Hughes is averaging 115m/game. He averaged over 100m/game in his first five years of NRL footy but most of that was as a fullback. This is evident in Hughes' kicking metres per game which was below 100km/game in his first five years, then above 150km/game in his last five years. Here are Hughes' kicking/running stats in the last five seasons which this season...
(kicking metres/game | run metres/game)
2020: 177.25 | 75
2021: 239.95 | 109
2022: 250.32 | 96
2023: 272.51 | 106
2024: 351.48 | 115
While hitting new kicking/running heights this season, Hughes has 26 try assists for his second season in a row with 20+ try assists. Hughes has had at least six tackle breaks in four consecutive games and in six of his last seven games.
Fisher-Harris is the mana man because his stats don't quite tell the story of his dominance of the middle alongside Moses Leota. Rugby league/union games are won by dominant forwards, who win collisions over and over again. Most of Fisher-Harris' key stats have been declining during this epic run of five consecutive Grand Finals and yet he keeps controlling the middle of ruthless NRL games.
The only stat that is on the up is his tackling percentage and that's at a career-high 96.05% this year. Fisher-Harris was below 92% tackling and 135m/game in his first four NRL seasons before...
(Run metres/game | Tackling efficiency)
2020: 179 | 94.6%
2021: 149 | 94.13%
2022: 148 | 95.07%
2023: 130 | 91.99%
2024: 127 | 96.05%
Fisher-Harris and Leota in finals this season...
vs Roosters
Fisher-Harris: 43mins, 15 runs - 121m @ 8m/run, 21 tackles @ 95.4%
Leota: 37mins, 12 runs - 115m @ 9.58m/run 17 tackles @ 89.4%
vs Sharks
Fisher-Harris: 50mins, 14 runs - 123m @ 8.7m/run, 22 tackles @ 95.6%
Leota: 39mins, 10 runs - 86m @ 8.6m/run, 27 tackles @ 93.1%
Nelson Asofa-Solomona has probably played his last game of the season and while I enjoy pondering the NZ Kiwis mixer, it's a reminder to chill and see how the NRL season finishes (then be surprised by all the funky lads called up). This overlaps with my appreciation for Alec MacDonald who has appeared in many Kiwi-NRL newsletter segments.
MacDonald vs Roosters: 29mins, 6 runs - 59m @ 9.8m/run, 9 tackles @ 100%
Keep in mind that MacDonald had 8 runs - 84m @ 10.5m/run in the finals win over Sharks a few weeks ago, with 24 tackles @ 100%. That's 33 tackles @ 100% and 14 runs - 143m @ 10.2m/run in two finals games.
MacDonald should get more game time without Asofa-Solomona and his speed in the middle may suit the Panthers match up. Aotearoa has plenty of big boppers to offer and I still reckon that MacDonald is the perfect hard mahi middle forward to plug holes for NZ Kiwis.
Brisbane Broncos flicked their coach aside this weekend as well. This period of stinky Broncos is slightly better than NZ Warriors. The major difference is that NZ Warriors endured far more pandemic adversity so while Broncos leadership was overseeing two of their worst NRL seasons, NZ Warriors were battling to survive. Here are their recent seasons, which doesn’t reflect too well on Broncos leadership (the folks who didn’t want Wayne Bennett, then hired/fired Anthony Seibold and Kevin Walters)…
Broncos
2019: 8/16
2020: 16/16
2021: 14/16
2022: 9/16
2023: 2/17
2024: 12/17
NZ Warriors
2019: 13/16
2020: 10/16
2021: 12/16
2022: 15/16
2023: 4/17
2024: 13/17
The NRLW Grand Final will be Cronulla Sharks and Sydney Roosters.
Sharks upset Broncos and Annessa Biddle was one of the best players on the field. Biddle smashed Broncos with every tackle and was more impactful without the footy than she was with the footy, which was epic to watch. Brooke Anderson is a funky Aussie Kiwi Fern who is the best dummy half available for Aotearoa, even though she starts at lock for Sharks and shifts to hooker during games.
Annessa Biddle: 1 try, 11 runs - 90m @ 8.1m/run, 4 tackle breaks, 14 tackles @ 87.5%
Brooke Anderson: 49mins, 8 runs - 84m @ 10.5m/run, 3 tackle breaks, 33 tackles @ 89.1%
Roosters were too slick for Knights with solid mahi from their Kiwi Ferns. Interestingly, Mya Hill-Moana has dropped out of their top-17 around the same time that she signed with NZ Warriors for next season.
Otesa Pule: 32mins, 8 runs - 93m @ 11.6m/run, 1 tackle break, 22 tackles @ 100%
Amber Hall: 44mins, 7 runs - 64m @ 9.1m/run, 1 tackle break, 1 offload, 12 tackles @ 80%
Tiana Davison: 39mins, 7 runs - 58m @ 8.2m/run, 1 tackle break, 2 offloads, 21 tackles @ 91.3%
NRLW Champions...
2018: Broncos
2019: Broncos
2020: Broncos
2021: Roosters
2022: Knights
2023: Knights
Musical jam…
Wildcard’s Notebook
The Breakers won again, how about that? In their home opener they beat South East Melbourne 81-79 at Spark Arena... almost throwing it away late with some sloppiness but fortunately SEM were equally as sloppy when it counted (a blown lay-up from Nathan Sobey springs to mind). The Breaks burst out to a lead against Brisbane in game one by shooting 7/9 from threes to begin with. That levelled out as they ended up with 9/21 three-pointers overall and they carried that second-half perimeter shooting into this game by making just one of their first ten triples (Sam Mennenga, of course). But Mojave King and Matt Mooney made a few from there as the home side nudged ahead.
You won’t win too many games shooting 40.3% from the field, 29% from threes, and 66.7% from the free throw line yet it was good enough to win this one. 19 points & 7 assists for Parker Jackson-Cartwright. 11 points & 9 rebounds for Sam Mennenga. 15 points for Matt Mooney. This is not a very good offensive team but they’re showing some heart and Coach Kop’s got them battling on the defensive end. He’s really stretching the minutes out too... with ten different players getting at least 10 minutes on the court in what was a very close, competitive game throughout. No garbage time therein.
It’s interesting. Very interesting. Still pretty sure they’ll struggle to make the playoffs but this has been an encouraging start, despite the fact that the two teams they’ve beaten currently combine for an 0-5 record. Of course, now the Breakers are off to play three games against NBA preseason squads to spoil all the momentum.
Sadly, the prevailing idea from this game was that it was a Breakers homer yet Andrew Mulligan and Casey Frank’s commentary seats were empty at the end of the scorer’s bench. Instead we got commentary from a studio across the ditch, though at least Tom Abercrombie was able to provide some hefty sideline yarns. Two years ago Sky Sport NZ was the naming sponsor of this team and now they’re not even producing the games. Pretty stink. Obviously Sky’s all sorts of broke these days but it still sucks.
One other prevailing idea is how the coverage tried to integrate the ol’ NBA walk-up footage but it was just the players walking through a downtown Auckland carpark…
Not having Mulls and Case on a Breakers broadcast may have sucked but even that didn’t suck as much as that Blackcaps effort in the second Test vs Sri Lanka. How does the fifth-biggest first innings deficit in the history of Test Cricket sound? Look away if you’ve got a weak disposition...
National League football has begun, with the first ten games having taken place across the men’s and women’s competitions over the weekend. Apparently this is a broadcast chat newsletter because there were some huge dramas with the FIFA+ streams. The first few of them had flash new scoreboard graphics which suggests maybe new software in effect... but if that was the case then hopefully they kept the receipt because they were utter trash.
All the new graphic games were grainy and laggy, with three of the women’s games so bad that they couldn't bear to upload the replays, simply letting them vanishing to all history (and making it bloody hard to write about, frankly). At least one of those streams didn’t even have commentary. A few seemed to be recorded by those single-camera automated VEO scanners. Only one of those three missing replays turned up in highlights form and from the quality of the highlights you can see why that was the case.
But then the Coastal Spirit vs Wellington Olympic men’s game on Saturday afternoon reverted to the old graphics and it was superb. High definition coverage with proper camerawork and a pair of commentators. Lovely stuff. The Eastern Suburbs vs Southern United women’s game even brought a second camera out, that one was great too. However, Napier City vs Western Springs did use the VEO recording on Sunday. Bit annoying but at least that stream was watchable (until one little freakout in stoppage time).
NZ Football are always bragging about how “you can watch all the matches of the National League Championship live and free on FIFA+” but already that’s proved untrue. The sentiment rings kinda hollow when some of these games are given bare minimum effort. Like, we’d almost be better off getting Canadian drones to film some of these matches instead.
But the football was great. We did get a nil-all draw in each competition which is a real hen’s teeth situation for the NZ National Leagues... though we also had 4-0 wins for Napier City Rovers and Cashmere Tech in the men’s stuff while there were eye-opening results on the women’s side with Wellington United turning up and beating Western Springs 3-2 on their own turf and Waterside Karori holding the imperious Auckland United to a 1-1 draw. The WNL looks like it could be the most wide open we’ve ever seen – Central Football are going to struggle bigtime but the other nine teams are all capable of beating each other, with only Auckland United stepping beyond the crowd. But if AU stumble against Eastern Suburbs next week then even they could have trouble qualifying for the final.
There’s a Women’s U17 World Cup happening in November and of the 19 players who went to last year’s Oceania U16 Championships to qualify, eight of them started WNL games in round one:
Putri Ardana & Hannah Saxon (Eastern Suburbs), Charli Dunn (Western Springs), Ela Jerez, Alyssha Eglinton, Katie Pugh & Brooke Neary (Wellington Phoenix), and Pia Vlok (Auckland United)
Plus Isla Cleall-Harding played off the bench for the WeeNix.
Vlok and Pugh only just got back from this year’s Oceania U16s, where they managed to qualify for the 2025 U17 WWC (because it’s now going to be an annual thing). Also in that squad was Kya Solomon who got minutes off the bench for Central. Pretty sure Ava Lewis (Western Springs), Zoe Brazier (Eastern Suburbs), and Farina Anchico (Wellington United) are in that same age range, as were roughly half the Central starters who’ve graduated from last year’s National Youth League squad. There’ll be several others too. Plenty of names to jot down there.
Women’s National League – Team of Week #1
GK – Mickey Mitchell (Auckland United) – Pretty hard to make a call on any of these spots when 3/5 games weren’t properly broadcast and the ones that were didn’t supply much room for the keepers to shine. Mitchell is a US import who was very good in the KS Cup final and made one brilliant save in particular late on against Waterside Karori, closing down Kendall Pollock 1v1 to prevent the rare instance of Auckland United only drawing from becoming the even rarer instance of them losing (which they haven’t done since last year). I trust there were no howlers in the lost footage.
RB – Nicole Stratford (West Coast Rangers) – She was probably playing as a CB but there’s no video to prove it so she can sit here instead. There’s also no video to prove she scored two goals but anecdotal evidence is enough.
CB – Annie Gilchrist (Canterbury United) – Brought that veteran aura to the Pride defence. Confident on the ball. Made a crucial goal-line clearance in the first half prior to her team taking control of the fixture. Influential stuff.
CB – Kenya Brooke (Eastern Suburbs) – Strong, commanding centre-backery from the Suburbs captain. Brooke has really blossomed into a leader and a key player for this side over the last year or two and she was excellent against Southern. Didn’t give them anything.
LB – Ava Lewis (Western Springs) – Springs announced her as their Player of the Match on social media and the goalie commented that it was well deserved. I’m happy to defer to those very educated opinions, particularly about someone who was probably the youngest player on the pitch.
CM – Rose Morton (Southern United) – Typical Rose Morton, leaving not a blade of grass without her sprig marks upon it. She’s just always exactly where her team needs her to be and was influential once again in getting a point away to Eastern Subs.
CM – Georgia Keen (Southern United) – Lots of big performances from the Southerners this week but gotta spare a word for Aussie import Keen, whose tackling and workrate not only fits perfectly alongside Morton, but frees Morton up to do even more.
CM – Libby Boobyer (Wellington United) – This was one of the lost games so it’s a bit of a guess... but Boobyer did score a goal and seems to have slotted seamlessly into the Diamonds side after joining as a guest player from Petone. Beating Western Springs 3-2 away from home means that someone from Welly Utd had to be here so LB’s repping for the whole crew.
FW – Nicola Dominikovich (Canterbury United) – Having packed in heaps of goals for Northern Tigers over in Oz this year, Dominikovich bagged a goal and assist for the Pride against the Nix Reserves. Always a willing runner. Missed a couple early chances but soon made it count.
FW – Kendall Pollock (Waterside Karori) – The Wharfies really should have more than one representative after inflicting a 1-1 draw upon Auckland United (whose 2024 record reads: 29 wins, 3 draws, 0 defeats)... but the stream was busted so blame Mr Infantino and his henchmen. But American striker Pollock did score a lovely goal. You get minimal chances against a team like AUFC and Pollock was alert to capitalise like a good striker does.
FW – Shannon Henson (West Coast Rangers) – It was a toss-up between Henson and her strike partners Bree Johnson and Emily Lyon. They each scored once against Central but there were no highlights to determine assists. Henson gets the selection because she’s the only one who played all ninety mins, but she can share the glory with her mates.
Musical Jam (RIP King)...