ITV today admitted to organising the New Zealand rugby team, known as the All Blacks, to lose to their French counterparts in the rugby world cup quarterfinals.
The All Blacks went into the tournament as overwhelming favourites. They had won all their pool matches with ease and were expected to go on to crush all other opposition on route to the final.
However ITV, who had bought the broadcasting rights to show the tournaments matches, had a hidden agenda during the tournament. Many of the cameras were not focussed on the game but in fact on many of the coaches and fans in the stands. These cameras were part of a new program ITV will be launching on Saturday evening, right after the rugby world cup final, called “Smile, you’ve been merked.”
This new reality program is the brainchild of Lisa Spreadbury, the marketing director for ITV. ‘The fact of the matter is that viewers enjoy reality TV.’ admitted Spreadbury when confronted about the show. ‘Viewer statistics show that more people watch X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing than any scripted program on television. Reality TV is the future and what better way than combining sport with candid camera?’
The premise of “Smile, you’ve been merked” is a series of elaborate practical jokes that aren’t just aimed at one or two people, but at hundreds or thousands of people, or in the All Blacks case, an entire nation.
Andrew Williams, ITV’s spokesperson, had been hoping to keep the new program a secret until the world cup had ended, but sources from within the All Black camp had managed to get their hands on proof of the practical joke. ‘It’s a shame that they found out before the program was played,’ Mr Williams admitted. ‘We were hoping to film all the players reaction when they found out they had been merked.’
Current All Black captain Richie McCaw, was initially shocked to hear that a joke had been played on them, but admits that it makes perfect sense when he thought about it. ‘Right from the start of the quarter final match against France, I felt that something wasn’t quite right.’ McCaw says. ‘The first sign was that we weren’t leading comfortable by the twenty minute mark. Throughout the match those fifty-fifty decisions seemed to be going against us all the time.’
ITV had combined forces with the IRB to set up this prank. They had hired an actor to play a referee for the match, called Wayne Barnes. Mr Barnes was given very limited time to be seen in the international rugby limelight and many eyebrows were raised when he had been appointed to referee this match.
‘Playing a rugby referee was a great challenge for me’ explained Mr Barnes speaking from his Hollywood loft compartment. ‘I was given just over one year to prepare for this big match and refereed a handful of matches leading up to it. I had to come across as a semi-decent referee before kick-off, but once the match started I could finally have fun.’
“Smile, you’ve been merked” will show interviews with key personnel before and after each match to describe how they plan on pranking their targets.
‘It wasn’t easy to keep a straight face throughout the match’ Mr Barnes admitted, ‘But I knew that my cover would have been blown if I had laughed out loud when I sent Luke McAllister off the field. I really struggled to keep a straight face during that part.’
When asked about the obvious forward passes that led to the French try, Mr Barnes just smiled and said, ‘Yeah, that was a tough one to pretend I didn’t see, but my touch judge, Jonathan Kaplan, told me in my earpiece that the passes were momentum and not forward, so laughing to myself I carried on with play.’
When pressed for more hints of what’s to come, Mr Williams from ITV, also noted with a glint in his eye, ‘Well let’s just say that England have done really well in the rugby recently and we have quite a few cameras in Iraq at the moment.’
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