Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nJo Barrett with Matt Russell and Danny Buderus before the women’s interstate challenge.Source: Supplied<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest thing with her is if there was ever anything to MC or speaking roles, she was certainly our go-to person that we\u2019d turn to\u2026 she is very good at it and natural at what she does,\u201d Murphy said. <\/p>\n
Barrett puts her comfort behind the microphone down to her background as a teacher, but also as someone with a keen interest in both the sports and performing arts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s probably been that natural affinity to be part of some sort of performing arts while I was also doing sport which suits teaching because up you\u2019re talking every day to a tough crowd that want to criticise you so I think that\u2019s probably hardened me a bit to what\u2019s required under pressure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn teaching you\u2019ve got to get a message across under pressure, sometimes without warning, and that transfers nicely to broadcast.\u201d<\/p>\n
In many ways, Saturday\u2019s historic call is a full circle moment for Barrett, who remembers being interviewed way back in 2008 by Fox League\u2019s Yvonne Sampson. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe was working as the Sunshine Coast sports reporter, and I found it really easy to talk to her because I knew her away from the game and the camera and I remember liking that as a player,\u201d Barrett said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember thinking, \u2018Oh, that was a really enjoyable moment, and it was really exciting to see snippets of the Jillaroos on the local news. <\/p>\n
\u201cEver since I had the opportunity to be part of it from this perspective, I\u2019ve always enjoyed it. I\u2019ve always gotten a lot out of it, and probably in more recent years it\u2019s been a bit of a quietly held aspiration of mine to challenge myself to be a play-by-play caller.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, now that it is here \u2014 how does Barrett feel? <\/p>\n
\u201cReally good,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously a bit nervous, but look I\u2019m looking forward to it. It very much feels like the lead-up to a rep footy debut.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robinson’s remarkable Rugby League rise | 05:48<\/p>\n
For Barrett, it can be hard at times in the \u201cfrantic\u201d world that is rugby league to pause and reflect on just how far both she and the game as a whole has come since the NRLW\u2019s inaugural season in 2018. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think change doesn\u2019t have to be quick to be long term, and I see all the time men who might have traditionally felt uncomfortable with women in the game at any facet, increasingly learn to love the women\u2019s game, and to be honest, even if they criticise it \u2014 well, they\u2019re watching it long enough to have an opinion,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could be absolutely given a terrible time by people on the weekend that they don\u2019t like what I did. But if they turned on the TV and watched women playing rugby league, I\u2019m happy with that. I think that\u2019s progress.\u201d<\/p>\n
That delayed broadcast at Suncorp Stadium back in 2015 was definitely progress. Even if Barrett was \u201cso far\u201d off being a lead caller at the time, she could recognise this was a \u201creally important moment\u201d \u2014 not for her but for the game itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though people weren\u2019t watching and the grandstand wasn\u2019t full, I just thought I can\u2019t believe we\u2019re here now,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
And sometimes, it doesn\u2019t even have to be as big a moment as that.<\/p>\n
Sometimes it is a simple phone call or email asking for her availability for the next season. <\/p>\n
Roosters duo call out ‘victim mentality’ | 00:51<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is an absolutely nothing moment in the everyday. But it\u2019s this reality check that you\u2019re going to do a job that is now normalised, you\u2019re going to be flown down to Sydney or wherever you\u2019re going, and you\u2019re going to call on a broadcast, a national women\u2019s rugby league comp,\u201d Barrett said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo you kind of go, \u2018Wow\u2019, even eight to 10 years ago, I would have thought, \u2018Oh, that just won\u2019t happen\u2019, for so many reasons. So it\u2019s often in those little moments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like even when she was teaching during her playing days and once entered the classroom with a black eye and a grade-eight student in the front row asked how she got it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was playing football on the weekend,\u201d Barrett replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cGirls don\u2019t play football, miss,\u201d was his response.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I\u2019m in a space where boys come in, the senior boys, the first XV rugby players at Nudgee want to ask me about what do I think about Ali Brigginshaw and the Broncos, or did I see the women\u2019s grand final?\u201d Barrett added. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo there\u2019s just this opening of acceptance, and it was this little thing I did quietly in my life outside of work on a weekend in a little pocket of the world where just a few fans of women\u2019s rugby league were involved in bringing the game forward. <\/p>\n
\u201cNow it\u2019s on quite a public stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jo Barrett on NRLW on Fox.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n
And it isn\u2019t just Barrett and former players who are making a name for themselves in the media. Even current Sharks captain Tiana Penitani-Gray has emerged as a fast-rising superstar both on the sideline and in the studio, where she provides expert analysis and strong opinions like her NRL counterparts. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so good to see that it\u2019s just a really normal and realistic pathway for a female athlete to have those opportunities,\u201d Barrett said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s great for the game to not be pigeonholed either because we love it in the men\u2019s game. We love seeing those stars transfer over and we want their opinions and she\u2019s not just the token female giving a positive one liner. <\/p>\n
\u201cTiana, every time I see her on TV, I just think she goes from strength to strength.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jo Barrett still remembers the phone call that started her commentary rise. Although she didn\u2019t even think it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-818397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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