Wet powerboard revealed as cause of MCG Anzac Day phone communications issues

The MCG is confident it can avoid a repeat of the issue which caused both coaching boxes to lose communications during Friday’s Anzac Day blockbuster. Here’s what happened.

A wet powerboard was the cause of the Anzac Day communications outage that left Essendon coach Brad Scott “helpless”, with the MCG sure it won’t have the same issue again.

The lines between the coaches box and the interchange bench dropped in and out for both sides during Collingwood’s blockbuster win over Essendon.

Important bench tools like countdown clocks and stats were impacted as well.

The issue has been pegged on a powerboard left out in the rain that fell consistently during the clash, which belonged to either Channel 7 or Fox Footy’s broadcasting equipment.

But neither broadcaster believes it was their fault.

Fox Footy remained confident on Sunday that it wasn’t to blame, with all of its equipment tagged and tested before Friday’s game.

Craig McRae said he was confident in his players despite the communications issues.

And Channel 7 was similarly adamant all of its tools worked as planned and didn’t lead to the outage.

Tech personnel from the Melbourne Cricket Club, which runs the MCG, had to jump in to rectify the issue while the game carried on.

Ahead of another big MCG game on Sunday – with a crowd of 70,000 tipped for Carlton to host Geelong – the MCC was due to keep a closer eye on broadcasting equipment to avoid any future issues.

Rain was not expected to be a factor at the ‘G on Sunday.

More equipment is brought into the ground for football matches than ever before, with both Fox Footy and Channel 7 covering games side-by-side.

Scott said post-match on Friday that the third-quarter blackout left him moving down to the interchange regularly to get messages through.

Jamie Elliott celebrates a goal during Collingwood’s victory. Picture: Michael Klein

The AFL allowed both teams to use two more mobile phones than is typically allowed during a match to communicate to the bench.

Collingwood kicked five goals to Essendon’s three in the third term, as the Pies built towards a 41-point win.

“It was pretty frustrating. That was as helpless as I have felt in a quarter of footy when we can’t communicate with the bench,” Scott said.

“Every time I went to go down to the bench they said, ‘It’s back on’, then it came back off. We just couldn’t work out what was going on.”

Collingwood coach Craig McRae was coaching from the interchange, as he regularly does, and said he was happy for his large collective of senior players to run the show amid the outage.

Originally published as Wet powerboard revealed as cause of MCG Anzac Day phone communications issues