The incorrigible Murray Mexted

Murray Mexted likes to put a limit on what he talks about but not how long he talks for. Picture / Mark Mitchell

The voice emanating from the speaker phone says, "greetings, dear lady. Shall I let you in?"

You'd recognise that voice anywhere. It belongs to the bloke who'll be in the Sky commentary box tonight when the Hurricanes play the Crusaders. If we get lucky, Murray Mexted will make a few gaffes; use a madly inappropriate word or two. Emanating is my little gift to him, should he be after a new big word to use, although it may not be rude enough for his liking. He can be very rude indeed, as I am about to find out.

This is when he is not being serious about how to get mentally tough by visualisation and other things I call "hippy dippy," and which he says, scathingly, is "completely the contrary". I don't know how the "dear lady" fits into any of this. I suspect it is just another of his little jokes. Whatever he's up to, it's as delightfully hammy as Christmas, and comes as something of a relief.

Earlier in the week, on the phone, he had sounded a bit growly. He had a few conditions (a few!) about the interview. So I thought he might be terribly strict and not talk very much. This will turn out to be another little joke. Muzza not talking much.

He's happy to talk about his public role but not his personal life. He says his telly profile and having been an All Black mean he lives a life where the windows are open and he likes to be able to close the door. This is one of his crazy metaphors. I repeat this back to him when we meet in Wellington and he says, "what's a metaphor?"

He likes to pretend he's not that clever, when he obviously is, just as he likes to pretend to be grumpier than he actually is. This pretending to be grumpy, and not being keen on being interviewed is a rugbyhead thing. It's about not wanting to be thought to be a showoff. Possibly not wanting to be seen to be brainy comes from the same instinct.

Although I am not, by the way, to call him a total rugbyhead just because his job is his International Rugby Academy and his "hobby" is the Sky gig: "I like to think of life as more than rugby." This is making assumptions, which, along with "trying to provoke me", he manages to tick me off for within minutes of walking in the door.

He has also laid down the law about the photographer. He says pictures taken while we're talking are fine but "I'm not posing. I'm not a poser".

And if I ask something he doesn't like, he just won't answer and I'm not to get "snakey".

But here I am in his office, which is like a very nice apartment and he makes coffee and says, "Where would you like to sit, dear lady?"

He says he's not performing when he's on the telly: "I'm just being me." Of course he is more complicated than he would like to appear. So on the telly he's in full-on bloke mode watching rugby with his mates. "It's just me talking, like me talking to you here in this conversation. When I'm doing a commentary I don't treat it any differently." If I was Mexted, commentating on Mexted, I'd be tempted to say he's a man of two halves.