How Loe blow pushed Shostakovich off the finals programme

Hard man Richard Loe was banned for nine months for eye-gouging Greg Cooper.

A gaggle of TVNZ's rugby commentary team was discussing the meaning of life as they waited near their broadcast vans behind the old terrace section at Rugby Park in Hamilton.

They had just completed their duties for the first NPC grand final in 1992. Initially, the conversation dwelt on motor racing ace Denny Hulme, who had died that afternoon from a heart attack as he competed at Bathurst.

But there was also the whisper from the NPC final that Sunday afternoon about some skulduggery involving Waikato prop Richard Loe and Otago fullback Greg Cooper.

Someone asked whether there was footage of any trouble and videotape operator Chizz returned to the editing booth to scan some tape shot from a particular camera.

"We knew the time in the game when Greg Cooper went off injured and I slowly went over the footage from a camera which was not seen during the game," she said. "No one saw anything during the game and usually those things are picked up as they happen. It was on a wide shot and when I saw it I got Gavin Service [director] and Keith Quinn [commentator] up to have a look."

Waikato under Kevin Greene, and with current coach Warren Gatland at hooker, had blitzed Otago 40-5 in the first-year playoffs.

Otago were so demoralised that captain Mike Brewer refused to emerge from his changing room for interviews - and Waikato created new celebratory noise levels next door.

But the euphoria of that triumph was overshadowed by Loe's subsequent nine-month ban for eye-gouging Cooper.

Waikato have not won a title since - losing finals in 1998 and 2002. They will try their luck again tomorrow against Wellington, the first time the two sides have met in a final.

"We knew we had a big story there and it was sent up the line to Auckland for the news," Quinn recalled.

Sports director Richard Becht was already piecing together an item about Hulme's death when he heard about the drama from the rugby. "From memory, we used that eye-gouging high up in the news - it made for a very busy evening," he said.

Chizz, who didn't want her full name used, had begun her television career at another tumultuous time: the 1981 Springbok tour of New Zealand. "For someone off a farm in Canterbury, that blew me away that tour, with the protests and everything else," she recalled.

She graduated to be a videotape operator where she saw many acts of foul play in rugby as the NZRFU decided to come down harder on violence in the sport. "You get used to it in the job but I was always amazed they try and do it," she said.

"The Richard Loe one, you could not see it when the film was played at full speed."

Chizz is still working freelance in television and has worked with Cooper on commentaries and spoken with Loe about the infamous incident.

"Someone was teasing Richard one day about the whole thing and I was worried about his reaction but he was fine. He just said it had happened - he got done for it and that was it."

Both Quinn and Grant Nisbett, who worked for TVNZ in those days, knew Cooper had been injured during the match but had no idea the cause or extent of his injury until Chizz's videotape discovery.

"I was on the sideline during the game looking to do a different story for the next day," said Quinn.

He wanted cameraman Roger Duncan to show the game in slow motion so he could overlay it with some music from Shostakovich.

The pair watched Cooper retire from the game and Quinn recalled a local photographer suggesting there had been some dodgy business.

Nisbett, who called that final, will commentate on tomorrow's conclusion to the Air New Zealand Cup for Sky with help from John Drake and sideline observations from Ian Smith.

"That '92 final was amazing. I always remember the speed Waikato used to run out of the tunnel. They came out like lunatics and I was amazed no one slipped over on the concrete. They were all very fired up about it. The game was all over after about 20 or 30 minutes."

Interviews in those days were done near the changing rooms in the old stand.

As we manoeuvred our way through the corridors I came across Cooper.

He was still slightly disoriented and shied away from questions about what had happened to him.

Years later, Quinn was in a bar in Hamilton, relaxing after another game.

A huge aerial photograph of the controversial 1992 NPC final hung on one wall.

One disgruntled punter then approached Quinn and accused him of causing Loe's problems from the commentary box. The picture provided the alibi: it showed Quinn on the sideline with cameraman Duncan.

For once, Quinn was happy he had a secondary role that day.