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The best piece of broadcasting advice rugby league commentator Allen McLaughlin says he ever got was from veteran cricket caller Alan Richards.
"He told me to call the game like you would for a blind man and your mother. The blind man can't see the game - and your mother doesn't know anything about it."
Bar one match, McLaughlin has called every Warriors game at Mt Smart Stadium beside his comments man, former Kiwi Owen Wright, in the past 13 years.
McLaughlin, 57, describes himself as "a great supporter of league" and says that comes through in his commentaries and his on-air stoushes with his RadioSport counterpart Brendan Telfer.
"I broadcast to the Warriors fans and I don't apologise to anyone for being a bit one-eyed because the Aussies don't give a shit about us. I have always felt league was second fiddle in terms of commentaries - but its a game about scoring tries and I think in my time in radio I've managed to convert a few people into thinking it isn't a bad game."
Although McLaughlin called the Warriors' grand final appearance in Sydney in 2002, he said Friday's match against Parramatta will be up there as the biggest NRL game he has called at Mt Smart.
"Alongside the semifinal against Canberra in 2002, it's the most important NRL match at the ground, I still think their first-ever match against Brisbane (in 1995) was a magnificent occasion."
He said Parramatta had "thrown the gauntlet down to the Warriors" and would be very confident after bashing Brisbane 68-22 yesterday. "After seeing that, my first thoughts were that any advantage the sellout crowd would have given us was nullified with that performance."
"I do think we've hit a few snags with injuries and I think they will need every one of the 29,000 to show up ... it's a 50-50 game. We've sort of won ugly in our last few games and shown a vulnerability, but you can't give teams a 12-point start in finals football, like the past two weeks."
McLaughlin has been there for the "very dull periods" when the Warriors couldn't buy a game in the late '90s. "It's pretty hard to do interviews when your team keeps losing and you have to ask the same questions".
But then there was the team's only grand final appearance in 2002 which he called in Sydney. Names like Blake, Hoppe, Kearney, Campion, Cleary and Wiki all get a mention as notable players to have donned the jersey.
But he says there's just one who should be immortalised at the stadium. "Stacey Jones was always brilliant, an absolute legend ... there should be a stand named after him."
"Ali (Lauititi) was another who could also do things that were magic and when he was on his game he was worth the price of admission alone."
ALLEN McLAUGHLIN
* Age: 57
* Interests: Cricket coaching
* Married with two children
* Greatest Warrior: Stacey Jones, Ali Lauititi
* Best coach(es): Daniel Anderson, Ivan Cleary and Frank Endacott
* Most memorable game: The miracle in Melbourne where the Warriors won 24-21 right on fulltime in 1998 with a Tony Tatupu try: "It's also pretty hard to go past the first game against the Broncos, it was an occasion we'd never seen before in this country."
