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Richie McCaw is interviewed in Melbourne - Source: ONE Sport -
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TV can be a strange business, but this was an incident I had never come across in my 13 years in the game.
The Close Up programme had called upon Australian bureau cameraman Dan's services to film Richie McCaw in Melbourne while being interviewed by Mark Sainsbury in the Auckland studio.
Now for this type of interview, cameramen take along an ear piece, a little plug that fits into the interviewee's ear, which is connected by wire to a mobile phone so he/she can hear the reporter/presenter asking the questions.
I entered the room to find the All Blacks captain making strange head movements, like he was trying to shake out water in his ear, and cameraman Dan with a look of horror on his face.
Yes, an extremely rare incident had happened.
The ear piece plug had dislodged itself from the wire and become stuck inside Richie McCaw's right ear.
News headlines flashed through my head: TVNZ TAKES OUT ALL BLACKS CAPTAIN!
I took a closer look and could see the skin-coloured plug wedged in McCaw's ear canal.
"Geez, you can't play with that in there," I said to the skipper. "Na, mate," Richie replied.
Mark Sainsbury was still on the line and asked what the delay was.
"Err, ah, the earpiece is stuck in Richie's ear!" said Dan.
The SOS call went out to the All Blacks' doctor, Deb Robinson, who arrived on the double with a small medical kit.
Deb took one look at Richie's ear and said, sarcastically, that this would be the most exciting job she would have to do all day.
With the steady hand of an ER surgeon, Deb's tweezers had the offending plug out of the captain's ear in no time.
We all then laughed nervously and got the interview underway.
Read more of Steve Marshall's articles. Steve is in Melbourne for the All Blacks' Test against Australia - he'll be live on ONE News at 6pm across the weekend.
