June 28, 2026 • 23 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed be
follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Gooday, welcome to real life.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
I'm John Cown. Now.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Grant Nisbit is my guest tonight. He's been doing sports
commentaries on TV and radio for Oh, it must be
more than five decades, by my reckoning, including more than
three hundred and fifty all black test matches alone. So
welcome Nisbo.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Gooday, John, Nice were with you.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Oh, it's amazing privilege to have you on the show.
You know, to rack up such an amazing career, you
have to be good at what you do, and also
to have stamina. But I guess you must love your
job as well, or else you would have found something
else to do decades ago.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
You still love it, yees, still love it absolutely. I'd
hate the thought of waking up in the morning and
having no real purpose. You've got to love your job,
quite clearly, and I've been lucky enough to be I
almost don't consider it a job, to be fair, It's
a passion and I've been lucky enough to be able
(01:12):
to pursue it since I left school, which is an
awful long time ago.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
How long would it have been that you've been calling
games and we're calling on sport.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I finished school back in nineteen sixty eight, so I
started at the old NZBC Sports Office and broadcasting House,
Wellington on the very last day of the year nineteen
sixty eight and pretty much been in the sporting business
since that time, in radio initially and then a combination
(01:42):
of both radio and television, and latterly since nineteen eighty five,
mainly with television.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, that's amazing. I mean people obviously like what you do,
or they would have pushed you out of the commentary
box years ago. So what do you think your approach
to commentary is that people appreciate.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Look, I try to be fair to everybody. I'm conscious
of the fact, even when you're doing all Black test
matches there are people watching who are not necessarily all
Black fans. That if I'm doing a Test match, for instance,
at Twickenham in London, I know there's a lot of
English people back home hoping the All Blacks lose. So
I've got to be as impartial as I can possibly be.
(02:26):
Even though mckewee brought up in New Zealand and obviously
support the All blacks. So I think you've got to
be fair and you can't tell FIBs. I remember in
the early days we're often told to sort of beat
the game up a bit if it was a bit slow,
just try and get it going again. But people sitting
(02:47):
at home don't want to be lied to. They can
see it's a poor game. Then that has to be
reflected by the commentary. So I think you've got to
be honest as well.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, you can't get away with that on TV if
they're seeing the same game that you're watching.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Maybe on radio.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I remember that there's that famous story of Ronald Reagan
who would be getting the sparse telegraph reports from a
baseball matches and he'd make up a whole commentary on
the basis of it, how the crowd was reacting and
how the picture was standing. You can't do that that
people are watching the saved the girl watching.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Now it's the old average and television. The pictures tell
the story, really, and our job was just to add
to the pictures right right.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
And you don't overdress it. You don't oversource it either,
do you. I think that perhaps that was a style
in the earlier days of sports broadcasting.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Yes, maybe, I certainly do a lot of research. Yeah,
But you know, I spoke to the great Scottish commentator
Bill McLaren many moons ago and asked him how much
preparation he did. He said he did a hitch of
a lot, but he said I only use probably ten
percent of it. And I found that over the years too.
(03:55):
I have a lot of stuff written in front of
me that I never use, right, But it's nice to know.
It's kind of an insurance policy. It's nice to know
it's there if you do need it. Right.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I was talking to bev and Dewe, who calls games
for a Sky, and he was saying he learnt from
you not to write out set pieces, not to have
little phrases to use and intros and outros and things,
and so that's obviously something that you've been doing. You
(04:27):
don't tend to have set pieces that you fall back on.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
No, I don't. And I learned a lesson quite early,
certainly in my sky career. I was in South Africa
in nineteen ninety six when the All Blacks won their
first of a series over there, and it came to
Pretoria where we were likely to win that series and
thus create history. And I wrote this, Oh, I guess
it was a couple of sentences, maybe a paragraph down, know,
(04:53):
just going back and saying it's been a long time.
And I wrote it down. And when the final whistle
blew and I blurted this thing out that I was
actually reading, and I thought of it okay. But when
I got home and watched the replay of the game,
I thought to myself, that sounds like a who's reading
a script? And from that time on, I've just gone
with the occasion. Really. I've tried to maybe a few
(05:17):
keywords that you need to fit in, but generally speaking,
I don't read a prepared script.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I remember someone saying years ago, if it's read, it's dead. Yes,
but you do do the prep, don't you. You've got
sheets of paper in front of you. What do you
actually prepare in front of you when you're doing doing
a game?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Well, obviously the individual you've got thirty players starting the game,
and nowadays you've got a number of others, so actually
you've got forty six players who may well be involved
in the match. So I've got the vital statistics of
you know, how many test matches they've played, how many
tries they've scored, maybe where they made their boo and
all the rest of it. And you're going to cover
(05:59):
a lot of other things too, and the possibilities that
maybe you don't think about, like a red card or
referee needs to be replaced, all sorts of different things.
So I've got a lot of stuff down there, as
I said before, and Bill McLaren kind of reiterated it
to me that you write a lot of stuff down,
but you actually use very little because fundamentally, when the
(06:22):
whistle blows to start the game, it just becomes one
giant ad lib and it goes for eighty minutes. You
can prepare all your like before the game, and most
of the stuff before the game is scripted to be
fair welcome, and the team sheets and a lot of
that is scripted, but once the whistle blows to start
the game, it becomes an ad lib.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
It's amazing that you can just trust your brain to
fill your mouth of words. And I guess that comes,
of course with fifty years of experience as well, but
I mean, it must be quite a gift to be
able to just sit down at a microphone not knowing
what you're going to say.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
And then say it, well, exactly, you're just really talking
about the pictures you see in front of you, aren't you.
And you know, you try and not overuse particular phrases
like I've Unfortunately, I've never found another word for advantage,
and I've often thought I'd like to have another word
other than advantage, because that word comes out a lot
(07:21):
because the referee, of course, does play the advantage law
along them the game. But generally speaking, you just try
and use other words because I did develop a certain
phrases over the years, and people have pointed them out
to me, and I almost eliminate them entirely. If someone
else can identify them, then I think to myself, and
(07:42):
then obviously I'm over using them. So often it's difficult
to find new phrases or ways to say things that
are pretty much happen in every single game right now.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I know you have an immense respect for your listening audience,
and you respect their intelligence, you respect the fact that
they're watching the same game you are. But do you
ever try to educate the listeners as well, because there's
a lot of people like me that half the time
the ref blows the whistle. I've got no idea why
they blew it, and a little bit of extra explanation
and things is so appreciated. So do you have dummies
(08:16):
like yourself and mind sometimes when you're explaining things.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yes, without offending the people who do know. It's quite
a delicate balance really, because you don't want people saying,
will we already know that your clown? So yeah, it
is a delicate balance. But I mean the way rugby
has changed and continues to change, and the law changes,
(08:39):
often things do need to be explained, even to those
who think they know. Because as I say that, there
was a point there in the well, probably not in
the last couple of years, but maybe in the last
five years that the laws of the game have undergone
significant changes and people need things to be explained to them.
(09:00):
So we try and do that sometimes I guess unsuccessfully,
but it's an important aspect of of the commentary.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Do you ever get confused yourself and wonder what happened?
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Then? Yes, yes, anytimes. Anytimes. You imagine over the last
forty years how many law changes. I mean, for instance,
it wasn't it wasn't until nineteen ninety six that players
could be lifted in the line out that was always illegal.
Once upon a time if you kicked the ball out
(09:32):
into touch on the full from anywhere on the field.
The tackle ball rule has changed a million times. Once
upon a time you could rack with your feet. Now
you can't do that. All sorts of things have changed
over the years.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So it's that long ago. I wondered when it turned
into a circus act. The well you came from radio,
and I wonder whether or not that gave you an
advantage when you got to TV, or did you have
to unlearn stuff. I mean, radio, you're painting a picture,
You're creating a mental image in people's mind. It must
actually be a big actually quite a big shift, I
suppose going to TV.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Yeah, I mean the big shift is not saying as much.
And it took me a way while to get used
to that, because you really would have just keep talking.
And I often say to people now, young aspiring commentators,
that silence is your friend, and because sitting at home,
(10:29):
sitting at home, ten seconds of silence actually doesn't feel
like ten seconds. When you're sitting in a commentary box.
It feels like an age, and you feel like you've
got to fill in the gaps. And I know for
sure working with so many ex all blacks over the years,
that that's probably the hardest thing they find. You know,
they feel that they've got to justify their existence by
(10:50):
continuous talking. But when they see a game back and
I've told them that, you know, a little bit of
silence is golden, they see exactly what I meant.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
All right, we should perhaps just stop talking for ten
seconds and I'll watch what happens to our producers.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
A little bit different.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Seconds of that that has cost you your job. You're
listening to news talk, said b. This is real life.
I'm John Cown talking to Grant and Nisbet, the voice
of New Zealand Rugby, and we'll be back with him
in just a few minutes.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on news talks.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
It be she walked through spring time when I've.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
The days were sweeten, our nights were warm. The seas
and change, the jobs will come. The flowers face this
ale house falsol along.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
That's a lovely bit of music. It's Willie Nelson singing
Gulf Coast Highway. Imagine Emmy Lou Harris would have joined
him if we'd played a bit more of that My
guest tonight chose that. But of music, Grant Nisbet and
you're a country and Western fan, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Love country music always have to me. Anyway, I've been
to Nashville twice. I go back again at a heart beat,
which is over. Well, it's called music city, but it's
effectively the capital city of country music, isn't it? To
go to the Grand Old oppri and the Rymen Center
and all the rest of it. It was just a
dream come true for me.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Are your musical yourself?
Speaker 3 (12:34):
No terrible? My mother made me play the piano for
a year but it never really cottoned on. But I
do love music, but I'm certainly no good at.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
It right, Okay, so country music. I mean, that's one
of the things we try and do in the show
is find out a bit more about people than pets.
People know and we know you as a rugby man
and other sports as well. And I imagine when people
bail you up at a pub, they want to talk footy.
But so and I know everyone asks you what was
(13:05):
your favorite game and your favorite rugby player, But I'm
going to ask you who is your favorite American president?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Oh? Good question. My favorite American president is probably Abraham Lincoln. Yes,
I've got a thing about American presidents. I couldn't probably
now recite all of them, but once upon a time
I probably could. I've got books in my bookshelf about
(13:34):
American presidents, about the American Civil War, and about baseball.
I sounded like I'm extremely pro American aunt. But nevertheless,
my favorite American president I think Abraham Lincoln, given that
he was the president during the Civil War eighteen sixty
one to eighteen sixty five, and what a job that
(13:54):
would have been to try and hold the country together.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Amazing.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
So look, he's up there for me, even though I
never quite got to meet the man.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Well, just do a quick poll of our listeners, put
your hands up if you knew that Nisbo was a
fan of American history. I don't see too many hands.
So where did that come from? Where did that passion
for American history and an interest in the Civil War
come from? Did you just browsing of it through a
National geographic or a history channel or something and it
(14:23):
just grabbed you or has it just been something good question?
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Something must have come up about the American Civil War
and I thought I need to know more about this.
Why did they have a Civil War? And what happened
during the Civil War? And I've ended up. I've ended
up with I must have twenty twenty five books about
the American Civil War, and it was pretty tumultuous. And
as you say, Lincoln was the president during that time,
(14:50):
certainly the president of the Union, not of the Confederated States.
That was a guy called Jefferson Davis. But yeah, I
got a little bit obsessive about it. You know, when
I heard it, I thought, I'm going to do a
study on this. I'm going to work out exactly what happened.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
When you read some of the stuff that Lincoln wrote,
it is just so profound and deep compared with what
you hear out of the bouse of politicians these days, unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
I mean, the Gettysburg address, which took two minutes and
four seconds. I tried to actually memorize it, but it's
kind of old English and it's quite hard to I mean,
you know exactly what he's saying, but it's not in
the English that we expect today.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
He wouldn't get a job, he wouldn't get a job
as a rugby commentator.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Too many big No. Well, he's very eloquent. He was
a lawyer by trade, so I guess he was reasonably eloquent.
But I was actually at Gettysburg about nine months ago,
and I went and stood pretty much on the same
spot that Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg address. It was a cold,
windy old day and there was no one else there,
But nevertheless, it was great to be on that exact
(15:56):
spot that he delivered the Gettysburg address.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Okay, another probing Nisburg question. Where's your favorite white bating spot?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
The Makinui River about thirty k north of Westport. Yeah,
been going down there for the last I must be
close to twenty odd years now. Yeah. Again, another another
one of those things. What this white baiting is all about?
And the me and the mate decided we jump on
a plane, we'd go down there, and we've been going
(16:26):
now for twenty odd years.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
You did it well enough at the start that the
locals didn't laugh at you.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Well, yeah, exactly. Oh, I mean it was a brave man.
It was a total joke the first year. Honestly, I don't,
honestly had no idea how to catch white babe.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
After twenty years, I think you'd know a few things.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah, to do right.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Another thing I know you're mentally proud of as your
two adult daughters. And I know the show before us
was talking about dads and their kids and dads and
their daughters. You would have had a challenging role because
you're away so often. Did you manage, though, to keep
a good relationship going girls?
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Oh? Yes, absolutely. And people have to say to me,
what's your greatest achievement in life? And are certainly not
doing three hundred and fifty test matches, And it's bringing
up two daughters or bringing up kids, basically, and that's
a challenge, as anybody who's listening would know. And the
good thing is that they have always enjoyed sport and
(17:33):
continue to this day. And they might probably my harshest critics,
which is fantastic. And and so it's in the latter
year has been an easy job.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Really yeah nice. You get through the teenage years and
they and then you reap some rewards if it's all
gone well, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
The teenage y is are challenging, but you and I
were both teenagers once, John.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, yeah, back, there's cave paintings that describe my teenage years.
But it's a long time ago. Hey, you've had a
successful career and a job you love, and you could
say that you've been very, very lucky, but your life
has been touched by by some tragedy, including leading and
losing your lovely wife tony years. She was only she
(18:22):
was only. She wasn't even sixty, was she.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
No, that's right, exactly, you know she she died of
cancer and it was it was really tough at the time, absolutely,
and you know, you just surround yourself with with with
people who love you and you and you do get
through and as they say, life moves on, but you
never forget obviously. But you know that is life, isn't it.
(18:47):
And probably in a funny sort of way. That's why
I like country music because it is life. It's authentic,
it's real, Yeah, and you know you get there in
the end. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
I guess a lot of country music has got that
tang of sadness to it and tragedy and so yeah.
So if you were saying the thing that gets you
through grief is to have people around you, because some
people just retreat back and lock their winds on their own.
That you kept in touch with people, and people kept
in touch with you.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Yeah, Look, there are so many different ways people deal
with it, really, and there's no script, absolutely no script whatsoever.
And there's no length of time to grieve either, is there.
I mean, it's something you don't practice for, but you
know that's life, and you get through it.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Right, And the loneliness in your lady years has been
eased somewhat though with a new relationship.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yeah, yes, exactly. Show that has come into my life,
which is wonderful. And I mean, who knows whether you
can go on on your own. I'm not sure at all.
So life takes it's a twists and turns, and anyone
who's listening will know exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Right right, Well, you know, your mid seventies and you're
it sounds like you're not sitting backs watching your watching
your garden grow, or maybe are watching your garden grow,
but I mean you're not just watching the grass grow
between your toes. That's what I mean. You're staying active
and so one of the things that you fill your
life with. You're probably not playing seen your rugby anymore? No, correct,
(20:29):
I certainly follow sport. I mean I'm not just a
rugby guy.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
I mean I was saying to someone earlier today, any
Kiwi playing anywhere, any sport, anywhere in the world, and
it's on the telly, I'm going to watch as an
example of that. I'm not a motor racing fan per se,
you know, sor but i'd certainly watch Formula One now
because of Liam Lawson. I watch. I watch IndyCar because
(20:54):
we've got three drivers. I watch NASCAR now because we've
got Shaving Van Gisbergen. Any Kiwi has got my balls
on them? Yep.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Oh, well and you've had, you've had, You've tried your
handed if sports. Are you still keen on bowls?
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah? I love it. Yes. I played bowls a lot,
particularly in the summer, obviously because it's an outdoor game.
Fundamentally it's called lawn bowls for a reason. But they
did build a big indoor arena here in Wellington at
the Niner Club and I joined there, so I'm playing
quite a bit through the winter as well. But I
really enjoyed bowls. I took it up in the late
(21:31):
eighties actually, but you know, bringing up a family and
all the rest of it, couldn't devote much time to it.
But in the last twenty years or so I really
got stuck into it, and I really enjoy it. It's
one of the few sports that on a given day,
if everything's going your way, you can beat some really
good players. I certainly couldn't beat it be on bord
(21:54):
at tennis. I never beat Muhammad Adi at the boxing ring.
But on a given day, once sound of one hundred,
im I might beat Peter ballast Probably not I might.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Hey, I got to mention a couple of fixtures coming up.
You're going to be calling All Blacks versus France on
the fourth of July, all Blacks versus Italy on July eleventh,
all Blacks versus Ireland on Saturday July eighteenth. So you've
still got a few things coming up there. We'll look
forward to watching those and hearing your voice. And I
imagine if afterwards we remember the game instead of the commentary,
(22:28):
You've done your job, the object of the.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Art of just doing the just doing the Italian game.
But I'm really excited you of All Black rugby because
new coach, new captain, quite a few new players.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Hey, the rest by one is full time whistle, so
we probably better go. And we've got heading out on
another bit of music that you've picked, and I think
it's this is where the Cowboy Rides Away, Brooks and done.
Been a great pleasure talking to you and is both.
Thank you so much for what you do for us.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Good on your John, been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Cheers.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
This is Weird cowbar runs away.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
We will lasting class hornist say this is weird cow.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
For more from News Talks at b Listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed be
follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Gooday, welcome to real life.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
I'm John Cown. Now.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Grant Nisbit is my guest tonight. He's been doing sports
commentaries on TV and radio for Oh, it must be
more than five decades, by my reckoning, including more than
three hundred and fifty all black test matches alone. So
welcome Nisbo.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Gooday, John, Nice were with you.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Oh, it's amazing privilege to have you on the show.
You know, to rack up such an amazing career, you
have to be good at what you do, and also
to have stamina. But I guess you must love your
job as well, or else you would have found something
else to do decades ago.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
You still love it, yees, still love it absolutely. I'd
hate the thought of waking up in the morning and
having no real purpose. You've got to love your job,
quite clearly, and I've been lucky enough to be I
almost don't consider it a job, to be fair, It's
a passion and I've been lucky enough to be able
(01:12):
to pursue it since I left school, which is an
awful long time ago.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
How long would it have been that you've been calling
games and we're calling on sport.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I finished school back in nineteen sixty eight, so I
started at the old NZBC Sports Office and broadcasting House,
Wellington on the very last day of the year nineteen
sixty eight and pretty much been in the sporting business
since that time, in radio initially and then a combination
(01:42):
of both radio and television, and latterly since nineteen eighty five,
mainly with television.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, that's amazing. I mean people obviously like what you do,
or they would have pushed you out of the commentary
box years ago. So what do you think your approach
to commentary is that people appreciate.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Look, I try to be fair to everybody. I'm conscious
of the fact, even when you're doing all Black test
matches there are people watching who are not necessarily all
Black fans. That if I'm doing a Test match, for instance,
at Twickenham in London, I know there's a lot of
English people back home hoping the All Blacks lose. So
I've got to be as impartial as I can possibly be.
(02:26):
Even though mckewee brought up in New Zealand and obviously
support the All blacks. So I think you've got to
be fair and you can't tell FIBs. I remember in
the early days we're often told to sort of beat
the game up a bit if it was a bit slow,
just try and get it going again. But people sitting
(02:47):
at home don't want to be lied to. They can
see it's a poor game. Then that has to be
reflected by the commentary. So I think you've got to
be honest as well.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, you can't get away with that on TV if
they're seeing the same game that you're watching.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Maybe on radio.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I remember that there's that famous story of Ronald Reagan
who would be getting the sparse telegraph reports from a
baseball matches and he'd make up a whole commentary on
the basis of it, how the crowd was reacting and
how the picture was standing. You can't do that that
people are watching the saved the girl watching.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Now it's the old average and television. The pictures tell
the story, really, and our job was just to add
to the pictures right right.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
And you don't overdress it. You don't oversource it either,
do you. I think that perhaps that was a style
in the earlier days of sports broadcasting.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Yes, maybe, I certainly do a lot of research. Yeah,
But you know, I spoke to the great Scottish commentator
Bill McLaren many moons ago and asked him how much
preparation he did. He said he did a hitch of
a lot, but he said I only use probably ten
percent of it. And I found that over the years too.
(03:55):
I have a lot of stuff written in front of
me that I never use, right, But it's nice to know.
It's kind of an insurance policy. It's nice to know
it's there if you do need it. Right.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I was talking to bev and Dewe, who calls games
for a Sky, and he was saying he learnt from
you not to write out set pieces, not to have
little phrases to use and intros and outros and things,
and so that's obviously something that you've been doing. You
(04:27):
don't tend to have set pieces that you fall back on.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
No, I don't. And I learned a lesson quite early,
certainly in my sky career. I was in South Africa
in nineteen ninety six when the All Blacks won their
first of a series over there, and it came to
Pretoria where we were likely to win that series and
thus create history. And I wrote this, Oh, I guess
it was a couple of sentences, maybe a paragraph down, know,
(04:53):
just going back and saying it's been a long time.
And I wrote it down. And when the final whistle
blew and I blurted this thing out that I was
actually reading, and I thought of it okay. But when
I got home and watched the replay of the game,
I thought to myself, that sounds like a who's reading
a script? And from that time on, I've just gone
with the occasion. Really. I've tried to maybe a few
(05:17):
keywords that you need to fit in, but generally speaking,
I don't read a prepared script.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I remember someone saying years ago, if it's read, it's dead. Yes,
but you do do the prep, don't you. You've got
sheets of paper in front of you. What do you
actually prepare in front of you when you're doing doing
a game?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Well, obviously the individual you've got thirty players starting the game,
and nowadays you've got a number of others, so actually
you've got forty six players who may well be involved
in the match. So I've got the vital statistics of
you know, how many test matches they've played, how many
tries they've scored, maybe where they made their boo and
all the rest of it. And you're going to cover
(05:59):
a lot of other things too, and the possibilities that
maybe you don't think about, like a red card or
referee needs to be replaced, all sorts of different things.
So I've got a lot of stuff down there, as
I said before, and Bill McLaren kind of reiterated it
to me that you write a lot of stuff down,
but you actually use very little because fundamentally, when the
(06:22):
whistle blows to start the game, it just becomes one
giant ad lib and it goes for eighty minutes. You
can prepare all your like before the game, and most
of the stuff before the game is scripted to be
fair welcome, and the team sheets and a lot of
that is scripted, but once the whistle blows to start
the game, it becomes an ad lib.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
It's amazing that you can just trust your brain to
fill your mouth of words. And I guess that comes,
of course with fifty years of experience as well, but
I mean, it must be quite a gift to be
able to just sit down at a microphone not knowing
what you're going to say.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
And then say it, well, exactly, you're just really talking
about the pictures you see in front of you, aren't you.
And you know, you try and not overuse particular phrases
like I've Unfortunately, I've never found another word for advantage,
and I've often thought I'd like to have another word
other than advantage, because that word comes out a lot
(07:21):
because the referee, of course, does play the advantage law
along them the game. But generally speaking, you just try
and use other words because I did develop a certain
phrases over the years, and people have pointed them out
to me, and I almost eliminate them entirely. If someone
else can identify them, then I think to myself, and
(07:42):
then obviously I'm over using them. So often it's difficult
to find new phrases or ways to say things that
are pretty much happen in every single game right now.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I know you have an immense respect for your listening audience,
and you respect their intelligence, you respect the fact that
they're watching the same game you are. But do you
ever try to educate the listeners as well, because there's
a lot of people like me that half the time
the ref blows the whistle. I've got no idea why
they blew it, and a little bit of extra explanation
and things is so appreciated. So do you have dummies
(08:16):
like yourself and mind sometimes when you're explaining things.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yes, without offending the people who do know. It's quite
a delicate balance really, because you don't want people saying,
will we already know that your clown? So yeah, it
is a delicate balance. But I mean the way rugby
has changed and continues to change, and the law changes,
(08:39):
often things do need to be explained, even to those
who think they know. Because as I say that, there
was a point there in the well, probably not in
the last couple of years, but maybe in the last
five years that the laws of the game have undergone
significant changes and people need things to be explained to them.
(09:00):
So we try and do that sometimes I guess unsuccessfully,
but it's an important aspect of of the commentary.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Do you ever get confused yourself and wonder what happened?
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Then? Yes, yes, anytimes. Anytimes. You imagine over the last
forty years how many law changes. I mean, for instance,
it wasn't it wasn't until nineteen ninety six that players
could be lifted in the line out that was always illegal.
Once upon a time if you kicked the ball out
(09:32):
into touch on the full from anywhere on the field.
The tackle ball rule has changed a million times. Once
upon a time you could rack with your feet. Now
you can't do that. All sorts of things have changed
over the years.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So it's that long ago. I wondered when it turned
into a circus act. The well you came from radio,
and I wonder whether or not that gave you an
advantage when you got to TV, or did you have
to unlearn stuff. I mean, radio, you're painting a picture,
You're creating a mental image in people's mind. It must
actually be a big actually quite a big shift, I
suppose going to TV.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Yeah, I mean the big shift is not saying as much.
And it took me a way while to get used
to that, because you really would have just keep talking.
And I often say to people now, young aspiring commentators,
that silence is your friend, and because sitting at home,
(10:29):
sitting at home, ten seconds of silence actually doesn't feel
like ten seconds. When you're sitting in a commentary box.
It feels like an age, and you feel like you've
got to fill in the gaps. And I know for
sure working with so many ex all blacks over the years,
that that's probably the hardest thing they find. You know,
they feel that they've got to justify their existence by
(10:50):
continuous talking. But when they see a game back and
I've told them that, you know, a little bit of
silence is golden, they see exactly what I meant.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
All right, we should perhaps just stop talking for ten
seconds and I'll watch what happens to our producers.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
A little bit different.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Seconds of that that has cost you your job. You're
listening to news talk, said b. This is real life.
I'm John Cown talking to Grant and Nisbet, the voice
of New Zealand Rugby, and we'll be back with him
in just a few minutes.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on news talks.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
It be she walked through spring time when I've.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
The days were sweeten, our nights were warm. The seas
and change, the jobs will come. The flowers face this
ale house falsol along.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
That's a lovely bit of music. It's Willie Nelson singing
Gulf Coast Highway. Imagine Emmy Lou Harris would have joined
him if we'd played a bit more of that My
guest tonight chose that. But of music, Grant Nisbet and
you're a country and Western fan, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Love country music always have to me. Anyway, I've been
to Nashville twice. I go back again at a heart beat,
which is over. Well, it's called music city, but it's
effectively the capital city of country music, isn't it? To
go to the Grand Old oppri and the Rymen Center
and all the rest of it. It was just a
dream come true for me.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Are your musical yourself?
Speaker 3 (12:34):
No terrible? My mother made me play the piano for
a year but it never really cottoned on. But I
do love music, but I'm certainly no good at.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
It right, Okay, so country music. I mean, that's one
of the things we try and do in the show
is find out a bit more about people than pets.
People know and we know you as a rugby man
and other sports as well. And I imagine when people
bail you up at a pub, they want to talk footy.
But so and I know everyone asks you what was
(13:05):
your favorite game and your favorite rugby player, But I'm
going to ask you who is your favorite American president?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Oh? Good question. My favorite American president is probably Abraham Lincoln. Yes,
I've got a thing about American presidents. I couldn't probably
now recite all of them, but once upon a time
I probably could. I've got books in my bookshelf about
(13:34):
American presidents, about the American Civil War, and about baseball.
I sounded like I'm extremely pro American aunt. But nevertheless,
my favorite American president I think Abraham Lincoln, given that
he was the president during the Civil War eighteen sixty
one to eighteen sixty five, and what a job that
(13:54):
would have been to try and hold the country together.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Amazing.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
So look, he's up there for me, even though I
never quite got to meet the man.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Well, just do a quick poll of our listeners, put
your hands up if you knew that Nisbo was a
fan of American history. I don't see too many hands.
So where did that come from? Where did that passion
for American history and an interest in the Civil War
come from? Did you just browsing of it through a
National geographic or a history channel or something and it
(14:23):
just grabbed you or has it just been something good question?
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Something must have come up about the American Civil War
and I thought I need to know more about this.
Why did they have a Civil War? And what happened
during the Civil War? And I've ended up. I've ended
up with I must have twenty twenty five books about
the American Civil War, and it was pretty tumultuous. And
as you say, Lincoln was the president during that time,
(14:50):
certainly the president of the Union, not of the Confederated States.
That was a guy called Jefferson Davis. But yeah, I
got a little bit obsessive about it. You know, when
I heard it, I thought, I'm going to do a
study on this. I'm going to work out exactly what happened.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
When you read some of the stuff that Lincoln wrote,
it is just so profound and deep compared with what
you hear out of the bouse of politicians these days, unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
I mean, the Gettysburg address, which took two minutes and
four seconds. I tried to actually memorize it, but it's
kind of old English and it's quite hard to I mean,
you know exactly what he's saying, but it's not in
the English that we expect today.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
He wouldn't get a job, he wouldn't get a job
as a rugby commentator.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Too many big No. Well, he's very eloquent. He was
a lawyer by trade, so I guess he was reasonably eloquent.
But I was actually at Gettysburg about nine months ago,
and I went and stood pretty much on the same
spot that Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg address. It was a cold,
windy old day and there was no one else there,
But nevertheless, it was great to be on that exact
(15:56):
spot that he delivered the Gettysburg address.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Okay, another probing Nisburg question. Where's your favorite white bating spot?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
The Makinui River about thirty k north of Westport. Yeah,
been going down there for the last I must be
close to twenty odd years now. Yeah. Again, another another
one of those things. What this white baiting is all about?
And the me and the mate decided we jump on
a plane, we'd go down there, and we've been going
(16:26):
now for twenty odd years.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
You did it well enough at the start that the
locals didn't laugh at you.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Well, yeah, exactly. Oh, I mean it was a brave man.
It was a total joke the first year. Honestly, I don't,
honestly had no idea how to catch white babe.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
After twenty years, I think you'd know a few things.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah, to do right.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Another thing I know you're mentally proud of as your
two adult daughters. And I know the show before us
was talking about dads and their kids and dads and
their daughters. You would have had a challenging role because
you're away so often. Did you manage, though, to keep
a good relationship going girls?
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Oh? Yes, absolutely. And people have to say to me,
what's your greatest achievement in life? And are certainly not
doing three hundred and fifty test matches, And it's bringing
up two daughters or bringing up kids, basically, and that's
a challenge, as anybody who's listening would know. And the
good thing is that they have always enjoyed sport and
(17:33):
continue to this day. And they might probably my harshest critics,
which is fantastic. And and so it's in the latter
year has been an easy job.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Really yeah nice. You get through the teenage years and
they and then you reap some rewards if it's all
gone well, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
The teenage y is are challenging, but you and I
were both teenagers once, John.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, yeah, back, there's cave paintings that describe my teenage years.
But it's a long time ago. Hey, you've had a
successful career and a job you love, and you could
say that you've been very, very lucky, but your life
has been touched by by some tragedy, including leading and
losing your lovely wife tony years. She was only she
(18:22):
was only. She wasn't even sixty, was she.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
No, that's right, exactly, you know she she died of
cancer and it was it was really tough at the time, absolutely,
and you know, you just surround yourself with with with
people who love you and you and you do get
through and as they say, life moves on, but you
never forget obviously. But you know that is life, isn't it.
(18:47):
And probably in a funny sort of way. That's why
I like country music because it is life. It's authentic,
it's real, Yeah, and you know you get there in
the end. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
I guess a lot of country music has got that
tang of sadness to it and tragedy and so yeah.
So if you were saying the thing that gets you
through grief is to have people around you, because some
people just retreat back and lock their winds on their own.
That you kept in touch with people, and people kept
in touch with you.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Yeah, Look, there are so many different ways people deal
with it, really, and there's no script, absolutely no script whatsoever.
And there's no length of time to grieve either, is there.
I mean, it's something you don't practice for, but you
know that's life, and you get through it.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Right, And the loneliness in your lady years has been
eased somewhat though with a new relationship.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yeah, yes, exactly. Show that has come into my life,
which is wonderful. And I mean, who knows whether you
can go on on your own. I'm not sure at all.
So life takes it's a twists and turns, and anyone
who's listening will know exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Right right, Well, you know, your mid seventies and you're
it sounds like you're not sitting backs watching your watching
your garden grow, or maybe are watching your garden grow,
but I mean you're not just watching the grass grow
between your toes. That's what I mean. You're staying active
and so one of the things that you fill your
life with. You're probably not playing seen your rugby anymore? No, correct,
(20:29):
I certainly follow sport. I mean I'm not just a
rugby guy.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
I mean I was saying to someone earlier today, any
Kiwi playing anywhere, any sport, anywhere in the world, and
it's on the telly, I'm going to watch as an
example of that. I'm not a motor racing fan per se,
you know, sor but i'd certainly watch Formula One now
because of Liam Lawson. I watch. I watch IndyCar because
(20:54):
we've got three drivers. I watch NASCAR now because we've
got Shaving Van Gisbergen. Any Kiwi has got my balls
on them? Yep.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Oh, well and you've had, you've had, You've tried your
handed if sports. Are you still keen on bowls?
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah? I love it. Yes. I played bowls a lot,
particularly in the summer, obviously because it's an outdoor game.
Fundamentally it's called lawn bowls for a reason. But they
did build a big indoor arena here in Wellington at
the Niner Club and I joined there, so I'm playing
quite a bit through the winter as well. But I
really enjoyed bowls. I took it up in the late
(21:31):
eighties actually, but you know, bringing up a family and
all the rest of it, couldn't devote much time to it.
But in the last twenty years or so I really
got stuck into it, and I really enjoy it. It's
one of the few sports that on a given day,
if everything's going your way, you can beat some really
good players. I certainly couldn't beat it be on bord
(21:54):
at tennis. I never beat Muhammad Adi at the boxing ring.
But on a given day, once sound of one hundred,
im I might beat Peter ballast Probably not I might.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Hey, I got to mention a couple of fixtures coming up.
You're going to be calling All Blacks versus France on
the fourth of July, all Blacks versus Italy on July eleventh,
all Blacks versus Ireland on Saturday July eighteenth. So you've
still got a few things coming up there. We'll look
forward to watching those and hearing your voice. And I
imagine if afterwards we remember the game instead of the commentary,
(22:28):
You've done your job, the object of the.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Art of just doing the just doing the Italian game.
But I'm really excited you of All Black rugby because
new coach, new captain, quite a few new players.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Hey, the rest by one is full time whistle, so
we probably better go. And we've got heading out on
another bit of music that you've picked, and I think
it's this is where the Cowboy Rides Away, Brooks and done.
Been a great pleasure talking to you and is both.
Thank you so much for what you do for us.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Good on your John, been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Cheers.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
This is Weird cowbar runs away.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
We will lasting class hornist say this is weird cow.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
For more from News Talks at b Listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
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