Stephen Donald, left, with Clubhouse Rescue co-host Israel Dagg and Newshub's Wilhelmina Shrimpton. Photo / Supplied
Stephen Donald, left, with Clubhouse Rescue co-host Israel Dagg and Newshub's Wilhelmina Shrimpton. Photo / Supplied
Former All Blacks Israel Dagg and Stephen Donald will put on their superhero capes next Friday night to save run-down sports’ clubs in the feel-good show Clubhouse Rescue premiering on Bravo.
The series kicks off at Hibiscus Coast Football Club which boasts 1000 members — but the changing rooms are nicknamed “the dungeon” with no doors for privacy amid a growing female membership. That’s where our dynamic duo — who make unannounced rescues — arrive to give them a makeover.
The pair are joined by interior designers Hamish Dodd and Catherine Portland and project manager Dean Larritt to bring some much-needed love to clubs up and down the country.
Israel Dagg and Stephen Donald with Hamish Dodd and Catherine Portland and project manager Dean Larritt in Clubhouse Rescue. Photo / Supplied
Rugby, tennis and golf clubs, and even a roller-blade clubroom all get the Dagg/Donald touch.
The former rugby greats aren’t new to TV working with Sky Sport, but they have definitely come into their own with their new show and quite possibly could become a long-standing television duo like Matthew Ridge and Marc Ellis.
“It took four times longer to film the series than we all expected because every club we went into we found more that needed to be done and just got stuck in and carried away,” Donald tells Spy.
“At Weymouth rugby club the sewers burst after we’d completed renovating the changing rooms and we had to pretty much start again. Izzy was unsurprisingly absent when we had to clean up that one,” he says.
Dagg says most people will be surprised to see how stuck in he got.
Israel Dagg and Stephen Donald in Clubhouse Rescue. Photo / Supplied
“We love to get down and dirty— and who wouldn’t, because it’s such an amazing cause.”
Dagg admits he’s not that handy when it comes to DIY, but he loved the opportunity and says there are plenty of funny bits of himself and Donald getting stuck in.
“Beaver and I even get to run the posthole borer, which is way harder than it looks. At one point, it tried to spin us around 360 degrees,” says Dagg.
As for his design skills around his own home, Donald says his wife, Alex, wouldn’t let him touch any of it when it came to design — apart from one space.
“My bar is my favourite area and it was my own design. It’s also in my shed so off limits to my wife,” says Donald.
The Rugby World Cup-winning pair have competitions during the DIYs at the clubs with the loser having to get stuck into the nasty jobs, in which Dagg, 34, says Donald, 39, cheats a lot.
“At Hibiscus Coast I had to remove a filthy toilet that looked like it hadn’t been touched in 30 years — it was a real block your nose and get on with it kind of job,” says Dagg.
Of all the clubs they worked on the pair say Ōpuawhanga tennis club in Northland stood out.
“The local community was strong and the whole community pitched in to help which really hit home for me,” says Donald.
Dagg says the treasure of a club pops up out of nowhere in the farmland in the Far North and had an amazing country feel.
