Sky Sports Cameraman

Keith Quinn: The 'rainbow day' - 1987 World Cup final

You may not have noticed this but Monday 20th June 2011 was a significant rugby anniversary worth noting.

It was the 24th anniversary of the day the All Blacks won the Webb Ellis Cup at the first ever Rugby World Cup tournament. The day therefore also becomes the anniversary of TVNZ's biggest sports telecast to that point in time.

In the final at Eden Park in Auckland the All Blacks won the final by 29-9 over France.

I remember the day and the lead up days of TV coverage as if it were yesterday. It was tense time for a lot of people involved in the background.

In the previous weeks before the Cup's grand finale the three TVNZ rugby commentators in particular were on serious edge. Before the tournament had started myself, Grant Nisbett and Brendan Telfer were advised by the TVNZ sports bosses of the day that in the pool games and semi-finals each of us would do about ten games of commentary and then there would be an announcement as to which of us would call the final, who would do the third place game and who would not be involved beyond the preliminaries.

Each of us worked keenly over the four weeks of pool play and each of us clocked up a million miles of travel and spoke a zillion words. Grant and I were assigned to split the games which were played in New Zealand, Brendan and his producer Murray Allison departed to Australia to cover games there.

I cannot speak for the either Grant or Brendan but I know I was on an irritable edge as Monday morning of the final week approached. On that day, just six days before the final, each of us was to be advised as to what our tasks would be for the following big Saturday.

In the end it was my good fortune to be awarded the commentary task of calling the first ever Rugby World Cup final. I took a phone call at home in Lower Hutt from Deputy Head of Sports Bill McCarthy. He passed on the news and then excused himself to inform the others of what would obviously disappoint them.

A memo was then written by McCarthy to all staff advising that Quinn had got the commentary call but the rider was then added 'this in no way reflects badly on the wonderful work done by Grant Nisbett or Brendan Telfer.'

The 'expert' commentator was named as the former All Black five-eighths, and later All Black coach Earle Kirton. He edged out the colourful staff member Grahame Thorne.

There was a similar edgy and nervous background concerning which of TVNZ's rugby producers would direct the coverage of the final. This was to be the 'plum' job of those years.

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