The Most Patient Man in Australia

I occasionally wonder with some awe how Steve Robilliard has managed to avoid being committed to a facility for the mentally infirm. To me it defies belief and reason that he has managed to remain not only a professional of the highest order but non-institutionalised and seemingly a fully functioning citizen of society. He has the tolerance of a Nepalese monk bound by the vows of chastity and silence, a modern day apostle of perseverance, fortitude and endurance. He is The Most Patient Man in Australia.

One such moment of wonderment came last Saturday. Suffering a hangover equal in brutality only to the Mancini-Kim fight, crippled and unable to even muster the force to find the remote control, I was laid up on the couch like Bernie from Weekend At fame, watching the best ABC Saturday afternoon sport had to offer. That just happened to be W-League soccer and Super Series lawn bowls. For three hours I lay motionless enduring what could best be described as the worst soccer I have ever seen followed by the wild excitement that only televised lawn bowls can bring. By the time of the ABC News I was delusional. I was unaware that watching sports could be so horrifically awful. I contemplated suicide. I prayed to at least three different deities. I vowed to watch an entire series of that monstrosity of television programming called Good News Week, enduring episode after episode of a smug Paul McDermott grins and poorly-timed and unfunny Mikey Robbins quips and a string of humourless and painful “comedians” aimed at a bourgeoisie audience attempting to convince itself it is on the cutting edge when the reality is that the humour is staid and disjointed and bland, if only someone would find the remote control and turn the channel and end this torture that surely was worse than anything suffered at Guantanamo Bay.

The man hosting both the W-League and the Super Series lawn bowls was, of course, intrepid and seemingly entrapped ABC television’s face of sport, Steve Robilliard. Had it have been the Shute Shield or the WNBL, Champions Trophy hockey or domestic netball or the Hopman Cup, Robilliard would no doubt have been there as well. This is what his life had become: the face of ABC Sport which made him the face of obscure or commercially unviable games, minor and/or irrelevant leagues and what can only be called Saturday afternoon filler for a network proud of its sporting coverage but unable to compete for quality events with the commercial and pay television networks who over the last two decades have come to recognise the financial benefits of top line sporting telecasts.

I find it hard to believe that this was where Steve Robilliard thought he would be twenty years ago when he defected to the ABC from Seven as the rising star in the commentary ranks. He was hot property and his future looked bright. The young sports reporter who had got his break in Gunnedah and Tamworth was now on par with Bruce McAvaney and Dennis Cometti and Tim Lane and Sandy Roberts, viewed as a face and a voice of the future though truth be told Robilliard probably had the jump on Sandy after his infamous Leanne Dicks blooper where he referred to Dicks as Leanne Cocks and then compounded his gaffe by saying “I suppose you get a lot of cocks”. Well, perhaps she did. Nevertheless, Robilliard had the world at his feet as the world of television sport became ever more prosperous.

The decision to leave Seven for the ABC in 1989 was not as bizarre and absurd as it would be in 2009. It was an odd move but it probably suited Robilliard’s natural strengths. The ABC still had Test cricket at the time (only shown to regional Australia) and Robilliard was integral to Aunty’s coverage. The ABC also had rugby league (though Robilliard was never part of the coverage) and rugby union and was more skewed at the elite level to those north and east of the Barrassi Line. In 1989 pay television was still nearly a decade off and both the commercial networks and sporting bodies had yet to fully realise the value in coverage of top level sporting events so the ABC still had a fair share of quality sports to air.

When Robilliard decided to join Aunty he certainly couldn’t be derided as mad or stupid or in need of permanent care. The fact he has stayed for two decades to spend the best years of his sportscasting career calling lawn bowls, netball, club rugby, women’s soccer and field hockey suggests he has become as mad as Henry VI after a week smoking crystal meth. Either that or he has a dark sordid history that ABC executives have used to keep Robilliard in a life of permanent servitude.

Did a young Steve Robilliard, wide-eyed with lofty dreams, really hope to spend his weekends at empty stadiums calling women’s soccer and at greens populated only by those who had heard Ben Chifley talk of the light on the hill in person? One would hope not. It would have been a somewhat sado-masochistic young Steve Robilliard to wish such a cruel fate upon himself. I’m not sure how much Catholic guilt that would require but needless to say it would be plenty.

In one sense Robilliard is a victim of his own loyalty and the economic maturity of television over the last two decades. Perhaps Robilliard has a deep seated belief in publicly owned television or an abiding sense of fidelity to the organisation that gave him his first real taste of the big time and as such he has stayed aboard a sinking ship. Loyalty is an admirable quality but at some point you need to look at the greater picture and realise that sticking true to a station whose top sports are club rugby, women’s soccer, lawn bowls and field hockey when you are a sportscaster is career suicide. Robilliard was also damaged by the economic maturity of television stations in the nineties when televised sport became a prized asset that saw the ABC priced out of any half-watchable sport by the commercial networks and newly formed pay television stations.

On another, he is one hell of a fool. A life calling backhands and drives and mat-to-jack length in front of a few dozen octogenarians is no life for a talented commentator once considered a star on the rise. Neither is making sense of a West Harbour-Gordon club rugby match watched by approximately nobody, either live or on television. Let’s not even get into the assault to the senses that is W-League soccer: in the space of three minutes a keeper let a ball slowly slide past her, another keeper ran out of her box to shepherd a ball over the deadball line only to have it stolen from her, a striker trod on the ball when it was the only thing that would have prevented a goal for her team, yet another forward fell over taking a shot…it was high comedy for those who were high.

Nevertheless, Steve Robilliard remains a professional, even if a somewhat jaded one. He may be a little regretful these days of not parlaying his early-nineties potential into something a little more exciting and enjoyable but he remains eloquent, informed and entertaining, even if only to those in the know. Last Saturday when questioning a victorious female lawn bowler who was digging the short ends, Robilliard asked: “so you have found a length you like then?” Well, indeed. Subtle humour may be about all he has left but he uses it well. There is nothing like a lawn bowls related double entendre. Steve needs to keep himself amused somehow.

Steve Robilliard is a fine sportscaster. He is a little dour but he is sharp, knowledgeable and likable and ever the professional. I will always wonder though why he threw away the best years of his career to call sports nobody cares for. He is patient, mad, perverted or stupid. I would like to believe that he is patient: The Most Patient Man in Australia.