The Raiders on Mix commentators have won a national radio award for capturing the excitement and joy of the Green Machine's comeback game against the Gold Coast Titans back in March when the team rallied from 22 points down to win by two points.
The call team of Chris Coleman, Phil Small, Nick "Raider Nick" Risteski and Adam Jansen won the award for Best Sports Event Coverage (non-metropolitan) at the 33rd annual Australian Commercial Radio Awards.
The broadcast of the March 26 game at Canberra Stadium covered the plays, the on-field excitement and the post-game interviews as the Titans, leading 22-0 for most of the first half, were eventually over-run by the Raiders, who took out the match 24-22.
The ACRAs were held at the International Convention Centre at Darling Harbour last weekend among radio royalty, including Kyle and Jackie O, Neil Mitchell and Amanda Keller and Brendan Jones.
The MIX Raiders call team were the only Canberra winners in the radio awards.
Chris, Nick and Adam were at the awards ceremony (Phil was down the coast) and thrilled to snare the win.
"That's the fifth one I've won personally. This one is probably the most special of the lot," Chris said.
"We built this call up from the ground up. Five years ago, MIX management took a chance and said, 'Let's put a local footy call on' and there was pushback. It's a music station, largely, and to suddenly have a footy call there.... Now we've done 120, 130 Raiders games and we knew we were doing okay, but to get that validation, after coming close a couple of times in the past - you don't do it for awards, but, gee, it's nice."
Awards were certainly far from the mind of the guys as they called the Raiders v Titans game back in March, Chris saying at the end of the night, they just hoped they done justice to the huge win they'd just witnessed.
Adam Jansen said the excitement of the Raiders' comeback also lifted the commentators on that night.
"It's not that often you get to see your team come back from 22-nil down," he said.
"And I think at 22-nil we were probably a little bit low on the game and then they started to come back and we got excited and it made a more exciting game to call. There's something about a comeback victory. And 22 points is a lot to come back from. We owe Matty Timoko a favour, he got a double that night and he did a post-game interview with us."
The team called the whole game from the ground, Phil and Chris providing play-by-play, Nick all the colour and Adam down on the sideline.
"A lot of people call games from studios these days so it was actually great to be there in person," Adam said.
Chris said the Raiders on Mix call was unique because it drew in all the elements with all four broadcasters making their own contribution.
"It's a really high-energy call all the way through," he said.
Nick Risteski said all four of them were different personalities but they had a good dynamic on-air due to their shared love of the game.
"We're all emotionally invested in the sport and in the club and when they're losing, we feel it and when they're winning we feel it, along with the audience. We're kind of an extension of them," he said.
Phil Small, who was the WIN-TV sports presenter for 20 years and now works for the Australian Federal Police, loved that he still had a voice in the game as part of the call team. "I've always wanted to keep my hand in sport where I can and this is fun, it's not like a job," he said. "It's fun every weekend."
The win meant a lot to Small, after winning previous ACRAs with 2CC.
"To win with these guys, it's fantastic because it's something they put in place and they've been working on for a while to do. To be able to come over and work with them, and then get the same award I got at 2CC, it's pretty special," Small said.
Their ACRA trophy will be displayed at the MIX 106.3 studios.
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