Dominic Unwin
16 August 2017
Bachelor of Sports Media student Dominic Unwin undertook an internship with the ACT Brumbies during the 2017 Super Rugby season. He was afforded unique opportunities and shown the ropes by experienced practitioners. Here, Dominic takes you behind the scenes of the Brumbies-Hurricanes quarter-final.
It’s 5:30pm on Friday, 21 July and there’s only one thing on my mind as I arrive at GIO Stadium: It’s cold!
Tonight, the Brumbies take on the Wellington Hurricanes in a Super Rugby quarter-final. The competition table shows that the Brumbies finished above the reigning champions despite accumulating fewer points (blame Super Rugby’s bizarre conference system!), but the home team is the underdog by a long way.
I’m arriving slightly later tonight. My fellow intern, Jack (also a sports media student at the University), is on curtain-raiser duty. Canberra Grammar is taking on Daramalan in an under-18 schoolboy showdown.
I flash my media pass, head up the stairs to the west lounge, and make a beeline for the press box in the Mal Meninga Stand, trying my best not to get caught up in the ever-growing crowd of VIPs.
Jack is already set up and busy typing away on his laptop. Curtain-raisers aren’t easy games to cover, with no replays and unknown players keeping scribes on their toes for the full 80 minutes.
Doing the internship with Jack has been great. It means that we get to experience game day in different ways and experience something new each week.
Tonight, I’m tasked with writing the match report for the Brumbies-Hurricanes clash. Jack, on the other hand, is on roving duty after he wraps up the curtain-raiser report, which means assisting with the pre-match press conference, organising team sheets, and shadowing the Brumbies media manager.
When I arrive at the media box, it’s already chockers. Everyone’s here: Fox Sports, Fairfax Media, News Corp, rugby.com.au, a contingent of Kiwi reporters, you name it.
The more press, the more opportunities to network. One of the highlights throughout the season has been speaking to Fox Sports staff and learning from them and hearing about their day-to-day routines. It’s really stoked my enthusiasm for working in this industry.
There is one downside tonight, though. All of the meat pies – an essential tool on a cold night – have already been snapped up.
The match begins and, much to the delight of the home fans, the Brumbies make a great start, scoring early to stun the Hurricanes. The first-half is a fantastic display of rugby and with the Brumbies right in the match at the break, there’s a glimmer of hope.
It’s a game of two halves, however, and the Hurricanes gain the ascendancy in the second stanza. The Kiwi outfit is enforcing its dominance and handling each Brumbies’ attack with ease.
Up in the press box, my hands are suffering a similar fate.
The cold has taken over and, all of a sudden, the usually straightforward process of writing a match report has become far more challenging as my fingers struggle to keep up with my train of thought.
No time to complain. The match has ended and I’ve got 10 minutes to file my copy. The Brumbies put up a great fight, but they were outmuscled in the end and have gone down 35-16.
While the home fans ponder their team’s elimination and consider what could have been, I’m under the pump. The full-time whistle signals crunch time in the media box.
Jack has already gone downstairs to set up the post-match interview area. Meanwhile, I’m glued to my chair and typing away as fast as I can.
Finished! I file the report and take a moment to properly reflect on what I’ve just seen.
I head down stairs with other members of the press for the post-match press conference. It’s quite surreal walking the tunnels under GIO Stadium and rubbing shoulders with stars of the game I’d ordinarily only see on TV.
That’s one of the perks of studying sports media and undertaking internships which afford me incredible opportunities. I’ve had a taste, but I want more and hope to make it a reality when I graduate.
At the post-match press conference, Brumbies coach Stephen Larkham, captain Sam Carter, and their opposition counterparts front the media.
The formalities don’t last long tonight. No one likes chatting after a loss and given it’s Larkham’s final game in charge of the club, he no doubt wants to spend time with his players.
It’s one of the challenges sports journalists face, getting something out of players who have just run themselves ragged for 80 minutes, but it’s one I’m happy to face weekly.
