Good call: Masters of the microphone
Who are the best rugby broadcasters of the last 50 years? Tony Smith offers his thoughts.
Scotty Stevenson – New Zealand’s current World Cup caller – and rising star Rikki Swannell have enormous potential, but there’s no beating experience for rugby’s alltime great commentators.
Despite a clutch of classy Kiwi microphone maestros, it’s hard to look past the late, great Bill McLaren as the best rugby broadcaster of all-time.
As consistently good as Keith Quinn and Grant Nisbett have been, in an ideal world, you would want McLaren behind the mike at every World Cup final.
A Scot who once played for the famous Borders club Hawick, McLaren was the for 50 years until 2002, beginning his career by describing table tennis matches in a hospital ward while recovering from tuberculosis.
A World War II soldier and former physical education teacher, McLaren was a wordsmith of the highest order. With his mellifluous Scottish Borders brogue, meticulous research (in the preinternet epoch) and inherent fairmindedness, he set a high bar for his commentary peers.
In many mid-winter Five Nations matches, with points at a premium on puggy pitches, McLaren’s commentary was invariably more entertaining than the onfield inaction.
McLaren kicked cliches into touch as he strove, without effort or artifice, for the apt and telling phrase.
Some of his best lines were reserved for All Blacks, who he claimed ‘‘looked like great prophets of doom’’.
Of Jonah Lomu, he said: ‘‘I’m no hod carrier but I would be laying bricks if he [Lomu] was running at me.’’
Then, there was his tribute to another All Blacks hero. ‘‘I look at Colin Meads and see a great big sheep farmer who carried the ball in his hands as though it was an orange pip.’’
McLaren claimed Grant Batty, the feisty 1970s All Blacks wing, played ‘‘like a runaway bullet’’ while burly wing Inga Tuigamala was a ‘‘thunderbus’’ from a family of 14. ‘‘You can see easily who was at the head of the food queue.’’
When Hika Reid touched down in the All Blacks’ 23-3 win over Wales in Cardiff in 1980, McLaren purred over every elongated syllable: ‘‘And it’s a try by Hika the hooker from Ngongotaha.’’
Influenza cost McLaren the chance to commentate the All Blacks’ famous match against the Barbarians in Cardiff in 1973.
That duty fell to another British commentary doyen, Cliff Morgan.
The former Wales and British and Irish Lions first five-eighth had the honour of describing a score by Gareth Edwards – since dubbed the greatest try in rugby history – thus: ‘‘Kirkpatrick to Williams. This is great stuff. Phil Bennett covering. Chased by Alistair Scown. Brilliant! Oh, that’s brilliant! John Williams, Bryan Williams. Pullin. John Dawes, great dummy. To David, Tom David, the halfway line! Brilliant by Quinnell! This is Gareth Edwards! A dramatic start! What a score! Oh, that fellow Edwards!’’
After catching his breath, Morgan trilled: ‘‘If the greatest writer of the written word would have written that story, no one would have believed it. That really was something.’’
When Morgan called games in his sonorous Welsh accent, it was like having a coach in the commentary box – minus the textbook gobbledygook.
Some of the best rugby commentators, however, have been career broadcasters. Witness McCarthy, Quinn, Moody, Grant Nisbett and Tony Johnson from New Zealand, and Australia’s Gordon Bray and Greg Clark.
KIWI CALLERS
Quinn’s passion for rugby and innate ability to unearth hitherto unknown, and often arcane, facts have enlivened his commentaries.
Such was the depth of his research, it would not have surprised if Quinn had known who was sitting in seat 12 Row C in the main stand at Twickenham, and the season ticket holder’s mother’s maiden name.
Forty-six years after his first TV test call – the All Blacks’ 1973 loss to England at Eden Park – Quinn is still on the world rugby sevens circuit.
Quinn has spoken millions of words in his long career, but, in many ways, is most famous for a moment which rendered him near speechless.
As Lomu trampled over England fullback Mike Catt to score one of his four tries in the 1995 World Cup quarterfinal, Quinn’s deep descriptive powers momentarily left him.
‘‘Lomu ... oh ... oh’’, Quinn – and rest of the rugby world – spluttered.
Quinn told after Lomu’s untimely death in 2015: ‘‘It’s been a slightly amusing part of my life that of all the words I’ve spoken and written in my life reporting sports, the only thing I’m really remembered for is a stumble on that try. I used to regard that with great amusement, I’m now going to regard that with great pride.’’
Nisbett has also been consistent and accurate in his calling of 300-plus tests since 1984. A senior club rugby No 8 or prop and Wellington Colt before broadcasting beckoned, Nisbett remains selflessly willing to feed the strike to his co-commentators in the booth and on the sideline.
Nisbett’s longevity has forced Johnson into more of a support role, but the proud Marlburian is a consummate commentator in his own right, as a play-by-play caller and sideline contributor. Johnson came to television after a long background in radio news and is the best of the Kiwi pitchside interviewers.
Bray, the veteran Australian commentator, is cut from the same cloth as Quinn and Nisbett, a career broadcaster with a deep knowledge and love of the game.
Clark, Australian’s lead TV caller for the past 20 years, is from the Johnson school, combining commentary skill with a news edge. The Queenslander had a decade in radio and TV in Auckland – with particular expertise in rugby league – before getting his rugby break across the Tasman.
The clued-up Clark is incisive and blessed to have entertaining, if irritating, co-commentators down the years, including Phil Kearns, Greg Martin and Rod Kafer.
One of the more listenable rugby voices belongs to South Africa’s Hugh Bladen, a former Transvaal and Junior Springboks first fiveeighth, who has been on the broadcasting beat since calling games on the All Blacks’ South African tour in 1976.
RADIO RUGBY ROUNDUP
Television now rules the rugby broadcaster, but there are still some superb radio commentators.
New Zealand radio’s current chief caller is Yalden by name and Yell-din by nature. Nigel Yalden tops the rugby’s Richter scale for sheer volume and unbridled passion and is set for a long career.
No New Zealander, however, has yet matched the legendary Winston McCarthy, a one-time rugby league player in the Waiuta gold mining township, near Reefton.
McCarthy’s ability to set the scene and capture the cadences of a match captivated radio audiences in the immediate post-war years.
He covered the All Blacks’ tour to South Africa in 1949 and epic 1956 home series victory over the Springboks, but his test calling career ended after the Lions series in 1959 when still in his prime.
McCarthy’s most memorable phrase still lives on in the synapses of older Kiwi rugby fans. His ‘‘Listen . . . it’s a goal’’ when Don ‘‘The Boot’’ Clarke lined up a penalty or conversion never got tired or cliched – in stark contrast to current Sky commentator Justin Marshall’s ‘‘Boomfa’’.
Bob Irvine, the son of 1924 Invincibles prop Bull Irvine, took over as radio’s All Black caller from 1960 to 1973. Noted for his knowledge of the game, the speed of his delivery was as swift as a Chris Laidlaw dive pass.
John Howson maintained high professional standards and was never afraid to hold the All Blacks to account in the 1970s and early 80s, while John McBeth was professional and proficient before making a successful switch to television.
The late Graeme Moody, who tragically died in 2011 while pursuing his other sporting love – surfing – was an indefatigable announcer with a nice turn of phrase whose humanity shone through in every broadcast. Never afraid to heap credit on the All Blacks’ opposition, Moody kept busy between games with purposeful player interviews.
It’s a shame New Zealand radio audiences rarely hear overseas callers. Ian Robertson, a former Scotland international and teacher who once taught future British Prime Minister Tony Blair, retired from the BBC in 2018 after 46 years, after entertaining the rugby public as a worthy colleague of Bill McLaren.
RTE’s Michael Corcoran is also worth listening to for his rich Irish accent and knack for sharing the excitement of an occasion – such as Jonathan Sexton’s last-gasp drop goal in Paris in 2018, which kept Ireland on track for a Six Nations grand slam.
EXPERT ANALYSTS
The BBC pioneered the concept of enticing former players and coaches into the commentary box to give viewers tactical and technical insights.
New Zealand’s use of expert analysts have come a long way since former All Blacks hooker Norm Wilson expounded his aftermatch views in an Avalon studio.
Over the years, former All Blacks coaches Laurie Mains and John Hart have been excellent analysts, as were Grant Fox, the exWorld Cup winner and current All Blacks selector, and the understated yet insightful former All Blacks fullback Greg Cooper.
Sadly, some recent All Blacks seem to subscribe to the Mafia style code of ‘‘omerta’’ – in that they never utter a critical or negative word about the current team.
Marshall – when he drops the ‘‘boomfa’’ blether – is a notable exception. He’s never afraid to give the All Blacks or Crusaders a serve when it’s warranted and he’s capable of breaking down a telling turning point.
Andrew Mehrtens had a steeltrap tactical brain as a player and is at his best in a television panel discussion when surrounded by other quality analysts.
Former Black Ferns flanker Melodie Robinson has come on in leaps and bounds as a pitch-side interviewer at this World Cup.
Put Nisbett, Johnson or Bladen on the play-by-play for a World Cup final and Mehrtens in the studio with Australia’s Kafer, England’s Stuart Barnes, Ireland’s Ronan O’Gara and South Africa’s Francois Pienaar or John Smit and it could be almost as good as listening to Bill McLaren’s highlights reel.