31 May 2020

I discovered my husbands’ secret power yesterday.

Yes yes, we all know about his amazing brain power, his excellent bike riding skills, his puzzle solving mastery, and his incredible humility, but I discovered a secret power that, in all honesty, I probably knew about, but got more evidence about.

He can commentate knowledgeably and with authority on ANY sporting event. Anywhere. Any time. Any sport.

He found a live game of rugby league on the telly. We had used up all the usual socially distant options for the weekend – we had done a little food shopping, walked the dog, refuelled the car (after a good deal of online research into pricing options available, of course), and one of us had a Grampy nap on the couch for a little while.

In desperation to avoid handyman activities, he turned on the rugby league game.

Please let me pause here to humbly apologise to anyone who is an avid league fan, but it’s just not a sport we have been familiar with. West Australians in our era grew up playing and watching Aussie rules football, soccer, and cricket. Throw in some basketball, maybe hockey, and that was about it.

Sure, we’ve had those rugby type infiltrations into our state, but the bulk of support comes from people with life history from the other side of the country. Or another country where they play that sort of game. 

But if you are desperate to watch live sport of any sort, apparently even dinky-di West Australians will watch it. Apparently, as my new League-experienced in-house commentator informed me, the world wide audience of the game we were watching was in the millions, on account of NO-WHERE having any live sport to watch.

Anyhoo – back to the rugby. League. It’s different from union. Even I knew that. My experience tells you this version is a lot more stop starty. Although union is stop starty as well. Whatever. They score by tries. Probably field kicks as well. Who knows?

My in-house experienced commentator knew it. All. Umpiring decisions were queried. Excellent tries and tackles were lauded. Or criticised, as appropriate.

I started writing a blog to keep me looking otherwise occupied whenever the in-house commentator was looking for an audience.

My personal commentator talked at length about the tricks they are using for the broadcast – recorded crowd noises, and cardboard cutouts of faces of people to fill up the empty seats.

What an ingenious idea! So clever. And greatly enhances the experience for the viewers, or maybe just for the commentators so they know they have an appreciative audience somewhere.

Do you have an expert commentator at your house too? Let’s put our personal cardboard cut-outs on the couch and I’ll meet you at the coffee shop.