By Mary Jane Boland
The longest 80 minutes in her career is how talkback host Helen Brabazon describes providing live commentary on a Super 12 rugby match early yesterday after the real announcers did not show up.
The Newstalk ZB host, who knows little about rugby, realised she might have to fill
in about 20 minutes before the Wellington Hurricanes started their match in South Africa against the Sharks at 1.10 am (New Zealand time).
After discovering the South African announcers had not turned up to work, the Auckland woman decided listeners would have to hear her amateur efforts.
"I thought, `My God, I'm not going to have the rest of the country ringing their little alarm clocks and tuning in to find the match not on," she said yesterday.
The 43-year-old, who has done the midnight to 6 am ZB talkback show for about 18 months, watched Sky Television Sport and gave her own version of events.
The difficult job was made worse by the fact that she had no one else in the studio with her and that, being Easter Sunday, there were no commercial breaks in which she could ring rugby experts for help.
After an initial problem with working out which team was which she got into calling the game - even managing to identify Tana Umaga from his "hairdo."
Her version has sparked calls to the station from amused people wanting copies of a commentary that replaced the usual rugby cliches with new terms like "mega-possession" and "whoops."
Occasionally there was a bit of confusion: "I don't know what any of the signals mean, so I simply can't tell you, but they're all in a heap on the ground and the referee is calling for, what's this, a lineout, maybe a lineout, no ... not a lineout.
"This would be the worst commentary ever in the history of the planet, really."
And she was overjoyed when the Hurricanes won 34-18.
The commentary went to air on 28 channels, including Radio Sport, for an estimated 10,000 listeners.
Last night Brabazon said she was absolutely exhausted after the game. "I feel quite proud of myself, but at the time it was a bloody nightmare. It was definitely the hardest radio I've done in my life."
