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When you watch a lot of rugby, you can’t help but begin to be more discerning about certain aspects of the game.
For example, Juan De Jongh’s running line in setting up a try for Jean de Villiers in the Stormers-Blues match over the weekend made me want to track down Adam Ashley Cooper (and every other Australian outside centre), tape their eyes open and force them to watch endless replays of this piece of play in the hope they would copy De Jongh’s speed and step every time they get the ball.
It also gets you thinking about rugby commentators more than I care to tell you about.
In this series, I’m going to look at the two kinds of commentators in isolation.
In the first I’m going to tackle the ‘play by play’ guy, the chap who rabbits on about who has the ball, what they’re doing with it and throwing to the experts for their inevitably fascinating insights.
The main criterion for the selection is simple: if I had to listen to one of them for the rest of my life, on a desert island with only rugby commentary for company, which one would be the last to render me crazy and a shell of a man?
What are some things that would send me crazy? Well, obvious bias would be the first. Seemingly forced pronunciation would be another. A lack of game acumen would be a third.
But I shan’t attempt to justify in these terms too much, as no doubt the main factor in all this is who I like listening to and who I don’t, so here goes.
5. Tony Johnson
The man with the ability to pronounce any name, no matter how many syllables or strangely-pronounced vowel sounds. He gets plenty of practice, of course, calling over in New Zealand.
By all rights, Tony is a man who should be higher up on the list, but there’s something about that voice which reminds me of the idiosyncratic, know-it-all uncle who likes to talk football with you as if you are a moron.
And I can’t give you an example of it either. It’s some sort of petty, internal reaction to his nasal tones that makes me want to walk to Waikato and tell him I know who Andries Bekker is and could he please leave the barbeque as it’s 11pm, he’s been here for eight hours and we want to go to sleep.
4. Matthew Pearce
This is probably a name that doesn’t resonate with too many, but in my view he’s in the top five callers in Super Rugby.
Sure, there are only about five of them, but Pearce is very serviceable.
I don’t quite know how to describe the timbre of Pearce’s voice. There’s something quite… angular about it. Everything he says is quite pointed, very profound, possessing distinct meaning in the context of the game.
What this means, of course, is that a knock on in the first five minutes is imbued with a similar level of significance as an 80th minute try in the corner to win the game.
I exaggerate.
But listening to him call the Stormers and Kings games is always a great treat, although, as you can imagine, at 2am on a Saturday morning my discriminatory powers aren’t quite as potent as they are at other times.
3. Grant Nisbett
Grant is a great commentator, has a great voice and knows rugby and how to call it like the back of his hand.
If only he knew other countries played the game too.
If Nisbett only commentated New Zealand derbies, he would be number one on this list (though when you come to number one you might understand how hard that would be to achieve).
Maybe it’s just the Aussie in me – the boorish, parochial, yell-at-the-ref Aussie – but I just can’t stand watching a Wallabies v All Blacks game when Nisbett is the man in the box.
Then again, it’s probably less Nisbett’s fault than a certain 15 blokes on the field.
So I think Nisbett suffers here due to my own grievances with our main rivals, but I’m sure New Zealanders would say exactly the same thing as the next man on my list…
2. Greg Clark
Clarkie is a man’s man rugby caller.
He’s become a well-respected figure in the Australian rugby community, enough so that he was invited to be one of the judges for the initial set of rugby immortals.
He clearly tries his best to remain objective, and does a good enough job of it in my admittedly Australian-skewed opinion.
Clarkie goes to the effort of researching opposition players, giving up tidbits of information as to where they played their junior rugby, which school they went to or an appropriate statistic where that player has proven he excels.
Clark took over as the voice of rugby in Australia when Gordon Bray, a similarly excellent caller, was the victim of circumstance and ceased calling Super Rugby and eventually internationals.
People think back to Gordon Bray and those silky tones with fondness, and a bit of a cult of Bray has been developed as a result.
But there’s no doubt Clark’s done a very good job in his absence, and he’s my number two pick.
Realistically, there’s only one very good reason he didn’t get the top spot.
1. Hugh Bladen
The voice. Need I even say more?
When you’ve had an ale or two and you come home from whichever pub, club or small bar you were frequenting that evening, the first thing you do is switch on the telly.
Depending on whether you’ve had one or two ales, you fumble with the remote for an appropriate amount of time and switch on the appropriate sports channel.
If there’s a rugby game being played on the high veldt, you know you’re in for a good night’s sleep.
Hugh’s deep, resonating, resounding, booming, droning voice would put the most rest-resistant infant to sleep. In fact, I hear there’s a line of ‘Sounds of Hugh Bladen’ insomnia tapes about to hit the market.
He might be aging, and making many, many more mistakes in his mislabelling of players and his misinterpreting of referee rulings.
There’s also the fact that, due to his extremely impressive pronunciation of Afrikaans names and his bordering-on-excessively-rounded vowel sounds, he’s inevitably calling action that occurred five minutes ago.
But that voice. It’s just so… alluring!
Follow Paddy on Twitter @WarmingthePine
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.