He had no time to finish the Shield game \u2013 that was left to co-commentator Ben Castle \u2013 and no time to change.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was dressed in a hoodie and track pants \u2013 definitely not dressed for an occasion, in part because I was having an off-tube day at Sky, in the booth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sky TV commentator Jeff McTainsh.<\/p>\n
He barely had time to make it to Eden Park. With the help of officials, he was ushered through the cordoned-off traffic zone and into a sea of people, and then delivered \u2013 with the help of a moped escort \u2013 to the grandstand entrance.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that stage it was ticking past 6 o\u2019clock \u2013 it was probably 10 past six, 6.15pm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kickoff was at 7.05pm.<\/p>\n
For a match that might normally take two to three weeks\u2019 preparation, McTainsh now had less than an hour.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went upstairs to the commentary area, popped in, saw T.J. and just said, \u2018I\u2019m really, really sorry, mate\u2019. He was amazing \u2013 class. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe let me use his notes and helped me out with his intro and things like that. Everybody made it as easy as possible and then, to top it off, I was just settling into the commentary seat and there was a knock on the window \u2013 I turned around and it was [Sir] John Kirwan. J.K. just had this big smile on his face \u2013 \u2018gidday mate\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that cemented that I was at Eden Park with him behind me. And then there was really nothing to do other than call the test.\u201d<\/p>\n
Co-commentators Justin Marshall and Jeff Wilson were also aware of what had unfolded. \u201cI sat down beside Marshy and he said, \u2018mate, you\u2019ll be fine \u2013 let\u2019s do it\u2019. He shook my hand, and honestly, once we were away, in some ways it actually felt like just another game.\u201d<\/p>\n
McTainsh has been a commentator for Sky TV for the past five years and is widely considered an heir apparent to seasoned commentators such as Johnson and Grant Nisbett.<\/p>\n
Sky TV rugby commentator Tony Johnson.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s had strong experience calling NPC, FPC, Super Rugby and Black Ferns matches over the past five years \u2013 as well as other sports such as netball and tennis \u2013 but prior to Saturday, he\u2019d called only two All Blacks games, both off the screen.<\/p>\n
Now he was suddenly thrust into the biggest All Blacks test at Eden Park since the 2011 Rugby World Cup final.<\/p>\n
McTainsh says he would have spent two to three weeks preparing for the match if he\u2019d been rostered on it originally.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a test match of that magnitude, you would have been thinking about ideas, themes, narratives, milestones, how you might want to phrase a try, just little things that you can insert and sprinkle through your commentary … ultimately, they\u2019re the things I think that bring a call to life. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re always what\u2019s in front of you \u2013 the test will tell the story, but that\u2019s where the preparation of two to three weeks comes in.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he was a little nervous when he first received the call-up, those nerves dissipated as he headed to the ground. This was happening, no matter what.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started thinking about an intro, what I was going to say, started thinking about the players I was going to be calling. Obviously, the All Blacks were fine, but there are guys in the South Africa team that I wouldn\u2019t have called for a long time \u2013 they\u2019re not playing in Super Rugby.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou watch them on the TV every other weekend, but calling it\u2019s different, so you have to get your head around it, who they are, visualising the player pronunciations and that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The All Blacks produced the best possible start to the test when wing Emoni Narawa scored after two minutes. That also helped McTainsh.<\/p>\n
All Black Emoni Narawa scores for the All Blacks in the first two minutes of Saturday night’s test match against South Africa. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really just helps inject yourself into the commentary because you get that chance to hit your high point early. You can feed off the crowd \u2013 the crowd went wild when he scored the try. There\u2019s something to be said about a connection to a crowd when you\u2019re there. There\u2019s nothing like being there.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just an unbelievable experience, absorbing the energy from that Eden Park crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was reflecting on his \u201ccrazy bloody weekend!\u201d as he spoke to the NZ Herald on Monday afternoon. \u201cI still can\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n
McTainsh has a little more time to prepare for his next All Blacks match. He\u2019s off to Perth for the second Bledisloe Cup test against Australia in early October.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you top the Springboks against the All Blacks at Eden Park, the most anticipated test match for years … but to answer your question, absolutely I am keen to do more.<\/p>\n
\u201cCalling more test rugby is definitely what I want to do and now that I\u2019ve got a taste of it, you can\u2019t beat that. It\u2019s the best.\u201d<\/p>\n
His crazy weekend didn\u2019t quite finish there. When he got home from Eden Park, his wife Gwendoline Taylor had the bags and car packed, to whisk him away to Te Arai Links golf course, north of Auckland \u2013 a surprise for his birthday on Sunday.<\/p>\n
And to top all that off, he was back calling rugby again on Monday morning \u2013 commentating the Black Ferns\u2019 big World Cup win over Ireland.<\/p>\n
A \u201ccrazy bloody weekend\u201d for sure.<\/p>\n
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand\u2019s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.<\/p>\n
Watch Media Insider \u2013 The Podcast on YouTube<\/a> or listen to it on iHeartRadio<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He had no time to finish the Shield game \u2013 that was left to co-commentator Ben Castle \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[190,74,5263,95,8136,11545,11559,3043,1559,11553,11549,11539,11558,11544,11557,8142,9517,305,293,11551,2936,11546,11540,8274,11542,7494,11556,11543,11541,1073,5978,111,139,11550,11552,69,8143,11547,5425,6327,1534,8861,213,11555,765,131,61,11554,437,11548,4767,102],"class_list":["post-9167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-africa","tag-after","tag-all","tag-and","tag-blacks","tag-blackssouth","tag-bloody","tag-call","tag-called","tag-caller","tag-commentating","tag-commentator","tag-crazy","tag-dash","tag-describes","tag-eden","tag-fans","tag-have","tag-his","tag-hours","tag-insider","tag-instantly","tag-jeff","tag-johnson","tag-lastminute","tag-less","tag-losing","tag-madcap","tag-mctainsh","tag-media","tag-might","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nights","tag-notice","tag-nz","tag-park","tag-recognised","tag-regular","tag-rugby","tag-saturday","tag-sky","tag-sports","tag-started","tag-test","tag-than","tag-to","tag-tony","tag-tv","tag-voice","tag-weekend","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}