Aotearoa Is The Best Sports Nation In The World

That's the point of what we're doing at the Niche Cache. We also dabble in sharing how Aotearoa is the best creative nation in the world, kg for kg. Right now it's Olympics time though and here is little ol' Aotearoa with another Olympics team that will win medals, let alone competing at the highest level across a wide range of sports.

The Niche Cache serves to broadcast Aotearoa's sporting excellence. Nothing more, nothing less. We don't cover all sports, we can't, we're just two blokes spinning yarns about kiwi sport. Different sports come in waves, different teams/athletes emerge as genuine world-class talents and command such attention. Olympics time puts different sports in the spotlight - it's time to ride the Olympics wave.

These Almost Daily Olympics blogs will pop up every few days to wrap up Aotearoa's mahi in Tokyo.

The Almost Daily Olympics blog will be accompanied by the Almost Daily Olympics Podcast on Patreon. Patreon is the best way to support the Niche Cache and you can sign up for $1 a month to support our mahi. Good karma flows, you join the Niche Cache Patreon whanau and this keeps us on track in broadcasting Aotearoa sporting excellence.

Then the Almost Daily Podcast comes on top of that. We do these ADP for funky kiwi sports events and started with the Blackcaps tour of England, now we'll be chatting through Aotearoa's Olympics campaign. You can check out a preview of the Almost Daily Olympics Podcast below which is live on all our podcast feeds - we do two kiwi sports podcasts a week as well.

We will try record the next Almost Daily Olympics Podcast on Friday. This will come after tonight's Football Ferns vs Australia game (11:30pm) and after the All Whites vs Korea game at 8pm on Thursday night. We'll chat through those games as well as previewing the epic run of Aotearoa sports that starts with the weekend. My Olympics beat features Black Sticks Hockey, Surfing, Rugby Sevens and Golf; the first three are coming hard and fast to start the Olympics.

Surfing will be tricky to medal in, but fun to follow. Billy Stairmand and Ella Williams are Aotearoa's representatives and neither are consistently on the World Surfing League level, competing on the fringes. Surfing's in the Olympics though and that's fabulous, plus this slides into a fun factor of Aotearoa's Olympic campaign as we are a nation surrounded by water and while there isn't exactly a large Maori/Polynesian presence in the water-sports; I can't overlook how important the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea is to Aotearoa, let alone Aotearoa's sporting excellence.

Rugby Sevens is a sport with probably the most pressure to perform as we all know how the mainstream media feels about rugby. While I'm hopeful of medals in both men and women's Sevens, it's always interesting to see how other nations use Sevens as an entry point to international rugby and to sum up the vibe here; I'm intrigued.

I wrote this about Black Sticks Hockey prior to their pit-stop in Perth where both teams played Australia twice. The Men lost 3-7 and 0-3, the women drew 2-2 then won a shoot-out before losing 1-3 which has me hopeful of a women's medal and realistic about the men's chances of a medal.

After two FIH Pro League campaigns, the women have finished mid-table twice (nine teams) and the men finished last then second to last. Many of these sports that have the Olympics as a focal point require results to boost funding and profiles (always gotta work towards self-sustainability), which makes this a fascinating juncture for Aotearoa hockey. There have been wrinkles of drama and players retiring because being a full-time hockey player is super niggly, while the men specifically have struggled to compete steadily with the best nations... despite all the coaching headlines revolving around the women.

We are in the midst of a golden generation of Aotearoa sport. With more options and more access to information, young kiwis are far more inclined to play other sports besides rugby and netball. Consider basketball's growth and the pure talent coming out of Aotearoa whether that be Charlisse Leger-Walker's excellence, Steven Adams and Sean Marks in the NBA or simply the amount of kiwis who are not playing for NZ Breakers in the Australian NBL. We document this on a consistent basis and this theme is present across most of our sports.

Football is a massive one and the Wildcard has told this tale over a few years now. In all honesty, it feels like Aotearoa hockey has stalled a bit and I'm curious to see how that idea plays out in Olympic results. The Olympic vibe is such that a sports' fortunes in Aotearoa can depend solely on Olympic results and hockey is at a pivotal moment. Football on the other hand is extremely fun, invigorating and vibrant. To start the incredibly weird Tokyo Olympics with Aotearoa's football teams is fitting, maybe even a gift from the stars as football's growth in the number of Flying Kiwis performing at the highest levels around the world has been a key storyline for the Niche Cache since the last Olympics.

The nature of football means that Aotearoa's excellence is most evident in our exports who literally play in leagues around the world. I haven't seen Aotearoa Kiwis play a league game since 2019 and that sucks, while this idea also applies to the All Whites and other national teams. This Olympics serves as an opportunity to see this footballers come together in representing Aotearoa and my hunch is that we will see the fruits of their Flying Kiwis labour.

And So It Begins...

The Opening Ceremony, which is presumably gonna be amazing as they always are yet which will not have a crowd in attendance and it’s expected that most athletes will skip it (many do anyway), doesn’t even happen for a couple days but two weeks isn’t quite enough to fit in a footy tournament so they get to start early. Thus the Football Ferns, who were the first kiwis into the Athlete’s Village, get the Aotearoa Quest For Olympic Success underway tonight when they face Australia at 11.30pm.

The Ferns have not played a proper game since March 2019. They only had one friendly since arriving in Tokyo and it was a 3-0 loss to Great Britain behind closed doors of which absolutely nothing has been revealed about how they lined up. There’s a Team GB lineup doing the rounds and we know their goal scorers (Ellen White x2 & Nikita Parris) but nothing about the NZers.

So they’ll be a bit of a mystery despite having such a familiar team. Under Sermanni (who is leaving his post at the conclusion of his contract after this tournament) they’ve alternated between back fours and back threes, though since the World Cup it’s been exclusively the latter in their five games. You’d imagine there hasn’t been time to learn a new system (though who knows what’s been going on in secret) so it feels like a 5-3-2 shape is the expectation. Erin Nayler’s the starting keeper. Probably Abby Erceg, Meikayla Moore & Claudia Bunge at CB with CJ Bott on the right and Ali Riley on the left. Katie Bowen and Ria Percival in midfield with Olivia Chance a little further forward. Then Hannah Wilkinson as the target woman up top with probably Betsy Hassett (or maybe Annalie Longo) playing off her. It’s still a line-up that’s short on goals and creativity but there are in-form players in key positions which is something that wasn’t the case at the World Cup.

Also... the Aussie women might be much better than us on paper but they’ve been kinda rancid lately. Didn’t live up to expectations at the World Cup by going out to Norway on pens in the round of 16... and this is what they’ve done in 2021 so far:

• Lost 5-2 to Germany (April)

• Lost 5-0 to Netherlands (April)

• Lost 3-2 to Denmark (June)

• Drew 0-0 with Sweden (June)

• Lost 1-0 to Japan (July)

They’re looking at this game and targetting us as a must-win but at the same time this is the best chance that we’ll get to upset the apple cart in Tokyo. USA and Sweden are our other groupmates. Three top-10 oppositions. It doesn’t get tougher than that. But Aussie have been leaking goals lately and our defence is pretty good so maybe, just maybe, that’ll level things out and give us a decent chance. Our first game at the World Cup was by far the best performance but was spoiled by a late winner for Netherlands so repeat that dose but with a tidier finish and who knows.

Where In The World Is Michael Boxall?

Jokes, we know where he is. He’s in Minnesota. The question is more will he stay there because Boxy is one of the three overage players picked by Danny Hay for the men’s Olympic football side (along with Chris Wood and Winston Reid) and right now, a day out from their first game, he’s still not joined up with the squad.

This has been an ongoing story in Flying Kiwis and in our Substack mailers. Let’s repeat some of that info now though to bring y’all up to scratch. First of all, there’s no FIFA window that forces clubs to release their players for the Olympics. Not for the men, at least. There is a women’s international window at this time – though Tom Sermanni still had dramas getting clubs to work with him on that one – but the men’s is technically a youth tournament so no need for such procedures. Hence some nations have had an absolute ‘mare trying to get overage players in, some have even had trouble with their U24 dudes. Minnesota United did not want to release Michael Boxall at first... but they ultimately obliged after Boxy pushed the issue. This from Flying Kiwis a couple weeks back)...

Adrian Heath, MNUFC coach: “Obviously, it's a big decision for us because he's such an integral part of what we do. We've still got a bit of stuff to sort out because the least amount of games he misses, the better. In one way, I'm pleased for him. In another, I'm disappointed for us because he's the cornerstone of our back four here. We could say no, but when you speak to the kid, I get it. Maybe the World Cup is something that's not going to happen for him. This is the next thing for him, so we reluctantly agreed. We're reluctant to let him go, but we hope he's back sooner rather than later.”

Boxy: “I don't need to tell anyone that I don't like to miss games at all, but we've got a full squad for a reason. These are the types of tournament that when you look back at your career, you can't believe you were there. Anytime you can play these big international tournaments, it's a massive honour. Growing up, ever since I was 5 or 6 years old, whenever the Olympics are on, everything stops. Anytime you get to be a part of it, it has always been something special.”

But then in his second to last game before he’d have left under the original plan... Boxall got injured. Had to be subbed off in the first half of a midweek game against San Jose and things got dark quickly after that. Adrian Heath initially said that Boxy would need an MRI and then we’d see what’s up with the Olympics after that. The results of that MRI were never made public however and after following that by offering his doubts that Boxall would be able to participate in Tokyo, Heath soon confirmed that he wouldn’t…

And yet NZ Football responded to that by saying he was still very much a part of their plans and that they were monitoring the situation. The Minnesota media seem to have been sold by the Heath line. They’ve accepted that Boxall won’t be going and that’s that. However on the kiwi side of things Danny Hay and NZF have continued to say that they’re in communication with the club and player and that they still hope he’ll be a part of things down the line. Obviously not for the first game but we’ll see how it goes after that. They’ve even declined the option to replace him on the roster and avoid the risk of being left a man down (there was confusion as to whether that was allowable... initially there were four travelling reserves to pick from if you needed to replace a player for injury but then they got elevated to full roster status as part of expanded squads so it wasn’t exactly clear what’d happen with an injured player now).

It’s all very murky. And, frankly, a little disingenuous from Minnesota United. They’d agreed to release him, he was named in the squad, now they’re saying they’re not gonna? This from Heath in a Star Tribune article from yesterday (which led with Coach Heath cancelling a weekend off because his team didn’t deserve it, bit of a grumpy pants move)...

“We agreed for him to go but then he picked up the injury. And I think we owed it to the rest of the group, to the club, to the supporters, really, that we kept our best players here. Had he not had the injury, he would have gone reluctantly, but with the injury, we wanted to err on the side of caution.”

But this bloody guy is already talking about Boxall’s impending return. Wouldn’t even rule him out definitively for their game against Seattle on the weekend – several days before NZ’s first Olympic game. Boxall didn’t play that one, naturally, in fact he popped up on the radio broadcast as a guest commentator (though no word as to whether he discussed his Olympic status or not), and he’s still yet to return to full participation in practice. But nothing about this sounds like he’s gonna be injured for the duration of the Olympic Games, in fact Heath told the Star Tribune last week that he was certain Boxall would be good to go against Portland on the weekend which is only hours before New Zealand’s second group game. Come on bro. To use that as an excuse to hold him back, knowing that you were reluctant to release him in the first place... it all seems very devious.

Anyway, here’s Adrian Heath having some bantz with an opposition player during the Seattle game...

Meanwhile Danny Hay just yesterday reiterated to kiwi media that they’re gonna give him every opportunity to recover and that they’re still optimistic he’ll play some part. Righto then. The rest of us will just wait until the two opposing viewpoints from Aotearoa and from Minnesota eventually find some alignment.

Now here’s a flashback to the last time New Zealand sent a men’s football team to the Olympics. It was London 2012 and we didn’t win a game but there was a 1-1 draw against Egypt in there at Old Trafford in which the goal scorers were Chris Wood and Mo Salah. Neither was especially well known at the time in the ever-crowded world of football. Each have just scored 10+ goals in the last four Premier League seasons. How about that? (Btw, gotta watch that one thru the youtube link coz you can’t embed Olympic channel stuff since they’re stingy bastards).

The Queen For A Reason

Crucial Information Hub

Consider this a PSA. Because the first thing any self respecting New Zealander wants to know while the Olympics are on is when are the kiwis participating, the best place to find out those schedules and timings is either on the NZ Team app or through this link here to the NZ Olympic organisation’s website. For example, that’s how I can tell you right now that the first non-football athlete to get in the proverbial saddle will be men’s single sculling rower Jordan Parry at 11.30am on Friday. The timing for the Tokyo games is amazing for us in Aotearoa by the way. They’re three hours behind us so an event that begins at 6pm local time will be on at 9pm NZT.

The first medal that’ll be competed for? Patrick Bevin and George Bennett in the cycling men’s road race beginning at 2pm on Saturday. Wouldn’t anticipate anything special there from those two in a stacked field of more than 100 riders but they’re both very good at what they do, they’ll be able to support each other along the way, and if one of them can crack the top twenty then that’d be pretty amazing.

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