Crowd set to go wild 4Playa app

Ric Salizzo, playing at No 8, used to feed the ball off the back of De La Salle College’s first XV scrum to a halfback named John Kirwan.

Now Sir John feeds Salizzo ideas which tend to revolutionise the New Zealand sports media landscape.

The pair’s latest concept is the “4Playa” app, designed to allow fans to “play the game” through their phones and, with apologies to Donald Trump, “make rugby fun again”, according to a red Salizzo cap. More on that shortly . . . Sports fans across the last generation will be familiar with Salizzo and Kirwan’s contribution to the media canon.

A Thomas Edison-like factory of ideas has been supplemented by talent identification which brought the creative genius of Marc Ellis, Leigh Hart and James McOnie — among others — into our living rooms.

The Good, The Bad And The Rugby was the pioneer, offering a behindthe-scenes insight into the All Blacks’ unbeaten 1989 Northern Hemisphere tour.

Sports Cafe´ and The Crowd Goes Wild followed, enticing fans into a world beyond the straitjacket of traditional media.

“Sports Cafe´ came about because players didn’t have a voice,” Kirwan says.

Sports Cafe´ and CGW provided a niche market for fans wanting a more irreverent television take on sport beyond the 6pm news.

“But we need them to exist so we can be different,” Salizzo says. “We’re going to take the piss, so we’ve got to have something straight.”

“They could never talk about hairy-backed Italians,” Kirwan adds.

Players on the app get 500 credits to spend picking four players per game on the basis of their skill sets. An army of coders monitor the game statistically and turn players’ selections into points which can be monitored live.

“It’s not just the All Blacks versus France, but me against JK . . . and his family,” Salizzo says.