Clean sweep for McKinnon

It's taken 30 years, but when Grant McKinnon turns on the microphone at Cooks Gardens on Saturday, he will complete a clean sweep by calling a match involving Counties-Manukau for the first time.
McKinnon is almost certainly the only current rugby radio commentator in New Zealand who will have called matches involving every union on his home grounds.
And there has to be some chance that his achievement will be unique in New Zealand.
Just to add to the occasion, McKinnon's comments man will be the departing Wanganui Sport and Rec chief executive Graeme Taylor, who played for Counties the last time they were in Wanganui, in 1974.
McKinnon was a 27-year-old rugby player for Marist at that stage, retired at the end of that season, and soon discovered himself in the announcing seat at Spriggens Park.
"I'd just retired from rugby, I was at a game aftermatch and Danny Anderson said, 'Eugene Crotty's going', they're looking for someone to commentate the rugby. You should give them a ring.
"And it went from there."
By degrees though.
"Only in my very first year did we used to broadcast the second half of the club game of the day ? and that's when I took over from Eugene Crotty. "He was the principal at Westmere School, and then he took a job at Hamilton Training College. Norm Neilson was before Eugene, although Norm came in and sat in with me for a couple of games ? we did a half each ? in the early stages of 1975.
"The first one I did fully was Tonga, which was a nightmare."
Why?
Try this ? P Tuihalamaka, L Tupueluelu, M Filimoehale, T Ngaluafe, and M Fakatulolo ? all in the same game, players never seen before, and a tyro commentator!
"I took half a week of work, I think, making sure I went to see them practice ? while I practised their names?.."
The easiest games to broadcast, not surprisingly, were those involving teams like Wellington and Taranaki "because half the players were All Blacks.
"But when it got to the NPC, and you got into the East Coasts, Bullers etc, where you don't know any of them, that gets tough."
And there are, of course, the mistakes ? the worst of them, says McKinnon is when you call a player with the ball wrong and realise he's about to pass to the man you've just called??
"Brown passes to errrrr, Brown, for example. So you make your call, you get caught out, but you just have to go with them."
For 30 years, then, McKinnon has been turning up at Spriggens Park, and then Cooks Gardens, to tell the people how Wanganui has been playing.
"It's taken from 1975 to have all the remaining 26 unions play in Wanganui," McKinnon said. "Unions like Otago, Southland, Bay of Plenty, they were in my first year. Then there was a gap, and the two that were the hardest to get were Northland and Counties.
"Northland were here five or six years ago with Wayne Pivac, and that left Counties. I started to wonder ? when are we going to see Counties? Graeme Taylor played here the last time, in 1974, and he says it was the day Norman Kirk died."
A wistful McKinnon remembers the "early" days as one in which Wanganui always had some chance of winning, especially the four wins in a row over Taranaki on Queen's Birthday Monday.
That game has become one of professional rugby's casualties. "No matter how many heavies came to town, we usually managed to compete in the earlier days."
For example, the 1982 Auckland forward pack contained Allan and Garry Whetton, Andy Haden, Greg Burgess, John Drake, and Glen Rich.
One of the best efforts?
The 35-33 loss to Wellington in 1984, where Wanganui led a power-packed team 30-3 at halftime and lost to a final second Mike Clamp try described by Trevor Olney as having been "scored out on Guyton Street," so doubtful it was as the corner flag went down.
Today he goes with the flow, recognising that times have changed and the union can no longer compete with the big fry.
"But you just have to accept that what's happening is life now. But you do wonder what's going to happen in five years or so."