Sky TV rugby commentator Jeff McTainsh received a last-minute call to commentate Saturday's test match between the All Blacks and the Springboks.
Rugby fans might not have instantly recognised the voice commentating Saturday night’s All Blacks test on Sky TV. Jeff McTainsh was called up with less than two hours’ notice after regular caller Tony Johnson started losing his voice. McTainsh describes a “crazy bloody weekend!”.
A hastily scribbled note was slipped to rugby commentator Jeff McTainsh as he called the big Southland-Canterbury Ranfurly Shield match on Saturday afternoon.
“I looked down at the note and it said something to the effect of, ‘You need to call the boss urgently’, and then underlined with four exclamation marks, ‘Needed at Eden Park!!!!’.”
At Eden Park, Sky TV’s regular test commentator, Tony “T.J.” Johnson, was losing his voice. With less than two hours to kickoff in the All Blacks-South Africa match, McTainsh – who had been calling the Shield game from the Sky TV studios at Mt Wellington, 8km away – was coming off the bench.
He had no time to finish the Shield game – that was left to co-commentator Ben Castle – and no time to change.
“I was dressed in a hoodie and track pants – definitely not dressed for an occasion, in part because I was having an off-tube day at Sky, in the booth.”
He barely had time to make it to Eden Park. With the help of officials, he was ushered through the cordoned-off traffic zone and into a sea of people, and then delivered – with the help of a moped escort – to the grandstand entrance.
“At that stage it was ticking past 6 o’clock – it was probably 10 past six, 6.15pm.”
Kickoff was at 7.05pm.
For a match that might normally take two to three weeks’ preparation, McTainsh now had less than an hour.
“I went upstairs to the commentary area, popped in, saw T.J. and just said, ‘I’m really, really sorry, mate’. He was amazing – class.
“He let me use his notes and helped me out with his intro and things like that. Everybody made it as easy as possible and then, to top it off, I was just settling into the commentary seat and there was a knock on the window – I turned around and it was [Sir] John Kirwan. J.K. just had this big smile on his face – ‘gidday mate’.
“So that cemented that I was at Eden Park with him behind me. And then there was really nothing to do other than call the test.”
Co-commentators Justin Marshall and Jeff Wilson were also aware of what had unfolded. “I sat down beside Marshy and he said, ‘mate, you’ll be fine – let’s do it’. He shook my hand, and honestly, once we were away, in some ways it actually felt like just another game.”
McTainsh has been a commentator for Sky TV for the past five years and is widely considered an heir apparent to seasoned commentators such as Johnson and Grant Nisbett.
He’s had strong experience calling NPC, FPC, Super Rugby and Black Ferns matches over the past five years – as well as other sports such as netball and tennis – but prior to Saturday, he’d called only two All Blacks games, both off the screen.
Now he was suddenly thrust into the biggest All Blacks test at Eden Park since the 2011 Rugby World Cup final.
McTainsh says he would have spent two to three weeks preparing for the match if he’d been rostered on it originally.
“For a test match of that magnitude, you would have been thinking about ideas, themes, narratives, milestones, how you might want to phrase a try, just little things that you can insert and sprinkle through your commentary ... ultimately, they’re the things I think that bring a call to life.
“You’re always what’s in front of you – the test will tell the story, but that’s where the preparation of two to three weeks comes in.”
While he was a little nervous when he first received the call-up, those nerves dissipated as he headed to the ground. This was happening, no matter what.
“I started thinking about an intro, what I was going to say, started thinking about the players I was going to be calling. Obviously, the All Blacks were fine, but there are guys in the South Africa team that I wouldn’t have called for a long time – they’re not playing in Super Rugby.
“You watch them on the TV every other weekend, but calling it’s different, so you have to get your head around it, who they are, visualising the player pronunciations and that.”
The All Blacks produced the best possible start to the test when wing Emoni Narawa scored after two minutes. That also helped McTainsh.
“It really just helps inject yourself into the commentary because you get that chance to hit your high point early. You can feed off the crowd – the crowd went wild when he scored the try. There’s something to be said about a connection to a crowd when you’re there. There’s nothing like being there.
“It was just an unbelievable experience, absorbing the energy from that Eden Park crowd.”
He was reflecting on his “crazy bloody weekend!” as he spoke to the NZ Herald on Monday afternoon. “I still can’t believe it.”
McTainsh has a little more time to prepare for his next All Blacks match. He’s off to Perth for the second Bledisloe Cup test against Australia in early October.
“How do you top the Springboks against the All Blacks at Eden Park, the most anticipated test match for years ... but to answer your question, absolutely I am keen to do more.
“Calling more test rugby is definitely what I want to do and now that I’ve got a taste of it, you can’t beat that. It’s the best.”
His crazy weekend didn’t quite finish there. When he got home from Eden Park, his wife Gwendoline Taylor had the bags and car packed, to whisk him away to Te Arai Links golf course, north of Auckland – a surprise for his birthday on Sunday.
And to top all that off, he was back calling rugby again on Monday morning – commentating the Black Ferns’ big World Cup win over Ireland.
A “crazy bloody weekend” for sure.
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.
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