1
00:00:00,920 --> 00:00:02,880
Speaker 1: This is gem Nation with Jones.

2
00:00:03,120 --> 00:00:06,720
Speaker 2: And last week we heard the news of Ray Warren,

3
00:00:06,800 --> 00:00:10,240
Speaker 2: the voice of rugby League is retiring. What does the

4
00:00:10,320 --> 00:00:11,840
Speaker 2: voice of rugby league sound?

5
00:00:11,920 --> 00:00:13,200
Speaker 3: Well, it sounds like this.

6
00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:35,760
Speaker 1: Put him in the second MG. Where is he supposed

7
00:00:35,800 --> 00:00:39,000
Speaker 1: to go? Rabbit? Where is he supposed to go? I

8
00:00:39,040 --> 00:00:41,519
Speaker 1: don't know? Here he is?

9
00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:43,880
Speaker 3: Alray Rabs Warren?

10
00:00:43,960 --> 00:00:47,760
Speaker 1: Hello, Amanda Jones? What's happening?

11
00:00:47,960 --> 00:00:50,720
Speaker 3: Well, well, what's happening with you? How do you feel

12
00:00:50,760 --> 00:00:53,440
Speaker 3: now that you've said the words out loud and Australia

13
00:00:53,520 --> 00:00:56,960
Speaker 3: is weeping with you and you're rolling in accolades? Are

14
00:00:56,960 --> 00:00:58,960
Speaker 3: you relieved? Are you sad? How do you feel?

15
00:01:00,280 --> 00:01:03,160
Speaker 1: And? I feel sad? Obviously it was a long time,

16
00:01:04,280 --> 00:01:09,480
Speaker 1: fifty five years. You just don't pull out of that

17
00:01:09,600 --> 00:01:13,039
Speaker 1: sort of existence easily without, as you say, maybe a

18
00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:13,679
Speaker 1: tier or two.

19
00:01:14,520 --> 00:01:17,280
Speaker 2: And how did you get to the decision, Rabs? Because

20
00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:19,800
Speaker 2: in ninety nine Games of State of Origin and you

21
00:01:19,840 --> 00:01:22,120
Speaker 2: said that you just wanted to watch the TV this

22
00:01:22,240 --> 00:01:25,080
Speaker 2: year to make sure you felt that you could just

23
00:01:25,120 --> 00:01:26,679
Speaker 2: watch it and not commentate on it.

24
00:01:27,760 --> 00:01:32,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty right, Jonesy, Well, what happened? I was

25
00:01:32,160 --> 00:01:34,880
Speaker 1: happy with the Grand Final last year and it was

26
00:01:35,360 --> 00:01:39,920
Speaker 1: always my desire not to go out as an old

27
00:01:39,959 --> 00:01:44,320
Speaker 1: commentator who just wouldn't go away, somebody making mistakes, who

28
00:01:44,319 --> 00:01:46,880
Speaker 1: didn't know who was making mistakes. I never wanted to

29
00:01:46,920 --> 00:01:51,120
Speaker 1: be that, and I just thought last October South Penris,

30
00:01:52,040 --> 00:01:54,840
Speaker 1: we got it right. And then I decided to say

31
00:01:54,960 --> 00:01:59,000
Speaker 1: nothing until I sat through about ten weeks. I think

32
00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:01,800
Speaker 1: I was watching the stuff out of this competition to

33
00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:04,720
Speaker 1: get the field of being a viewer rather than the commentator.

34
00:02:04,840 --> 00:02:09,560
Speaker 1: And then last week on Wednesday, I decided to tell

35
00:02:10,080 --> 00:02:12,000
Speaker 1: to tell Channel nine that I didn't want to do

36
00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:12,640
Speaker 1: it anymore.

37
00:02:13,240 --> 00:02:16,680
Speaker 3: And how about your family? Your wife share? How does

38
00:02:16,720 --> 00:02:18,520
Speaker 3: she feel having you at home on the weekends? At

39
00:02:18,560 --> 00:02:20,280
Speaker 3: least you can watch the living Rooms on Channel ten

40
00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:22,400
Speaker 3: on Friday nights now, rads. And I know that was

41
00:02:22,440 --> 00:02:24,520
Speaker 3: a big reason that all this happened.

42
00:02:25,720 --> 00:02:30,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, she loves the living room. You court right. No,

43
00:02:30,280 --> 00:02:33,919
Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you, Amanda. And you know share.

44
00:02:34,720 --> 00:02:37,280
Speaker 1: She's at the carle face every day that I'm preparing

45
00:02:37,320 --> 00:02:39,560
Speaker 1: to go to work, and she could see it was

46
00:02:40,160 --> 00:02:44,600
Speaker 1: taking its toll on me. Yeah, anxiousness and palpitations, god

47
00:02:44,680 --> 00:02:49,400
Speaker 1: knows what, and it was taking its toll. And that

48
00:02:49,520 --> 00:02:52,080
Speaker 1: was a very big part of making the decision to

49
00:02:52,160 --> 00:02:55,760
Speaker 1: call it quits seventy nine. I've had a good innings.

50
00:02:56,560 --> 00:02:59,520
Speaker 1: I started rolling marbles down a slope when I was six,

51
00:02:59,840 --> 00:03:03,560
Speaker 1: so really I've been doing this stuff for about seventy

52
00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:04,200
Speaker 1: three years.

53
00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:07,680
Speaker 2: So did you commentate when you were rolling the marbles?

54
00:03:07,680 --> 00:03:10,320
Speaker 2: Did you say, oh, there goes to Tom Bohler.

55
00:03:12,800 --> 00:03:15,400
Speaker 1: No? No, I had all sorts of marbles. I had

56
00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:20,000
Speaker 1: Milki's and Boddies and some Tom Boulders. But they were horses,

57
00:03:20,080 --> 00:03:23,959
Speaker 1: Jones raw, they were horses. I should have pointed that out.

58
00:03:24,080 --> 00:03:27,880
Speaker 1: Oh that that was probably my first love. Really, I

59
00:03:27,919 --> 00:03:31,360
Speaker 1: fell in love with a racing commentator who I thought

60
00:03:31,440 --> 00:03:35,080
Speaker 1: was the greatest, Ken Howard, and I started rolling marbles

61
00:03:35,240 --> 00:03:38,400
Speaker 1: pretending to be a sports commentator, and then I started

62
00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:44,160
Speaker 1: branching out into other sports. But I was impersonating, pretending practicing,

63
00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:47,960
Speaker 1: and then the dream commenced for me. Really when I

64
00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:51,720
Speaker 1: was twenty three. That's what I actually got paid to do,

65
00:03:52,320 --> 00:03:55,360
Speaker 1: to do what I've been doing now for fifty odd years.

66
00:03:55,400 --> 00:03:58,080
Speaker 3: Here, How do you speak of impersonators? How do you

67
00:03:58,120 --> 00:04:00,400
Speaker 3: feel when people like Jones in the public come up

68
00:04:00,400 --> 00:04:02,440
Speaker 3: to you and do an impression of you to you.

69
00:04:04,120 --> 00:04:07,800
Speaker 1: Funny thing you say that man. Originally I used to

70
00:04:07,800 --> 00:04:10,840
Speaker 1: get a little bit gruff. Yeah, I think that's the word.

71
00:04:10,920 --> 00:04:13,520
Speaker 1: I challenged a couple of Boks one day. I was

72
00:04:13,800 --> 00:04:18,080
Speaker 1: sort of upset about it, but no more recently the

73
00:04:18,200 --> 00:04:23,440
Speaker 1: last twenty years. I think since Billy did the Twelfth

74
00:04:23,480 --> 00:04:28,280
Speaker 1: Man album and more and more people were impersonating that voice.

75
00:04:29,200 --> 00:04:33,560
Speaker 1: I basically laughed along with them. Jonesy, I marked him

76
00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:36,960
Speaker 1: very low. He wasn't even in the top ten.

77
00:04:38,800 --> 00:04:41,480
Speaker 2: Rabs and I we used to fill in when we're

78
00:04:41,480 --> 00:04:43,640
Speaker 2: working out a triple M and Rabs and I would

79
00:04:43,640 --> 00:04:46,279
Speaker 2: be the summer filling show. So it'd be me and

80
00:04:46,360 --> 00:04:49,160
Speaker 2: Rabs filling in for Andrew Dent and Breakfast and then

81
00:04:49,200 --> 00:04:51,039
Speaker 2: I think there was one day we had Billy Birmingham on,

82
00:04:51,240 --> 00:04:53,760
Speaker 2: so it was just a Rabs fest. It was triple

83
00:04:53,839 --> 00:04:55,000
Speaker 2: your Rabs.

84
00:04:56,600 --> 00:05:01,360
Speaker 1: I remember that Denton once called me a walking talking

85
00:05:01,520 --> 00:05:02,239
Speaker 1: core puscle.

86
00:05:04,200 --> 00:05:08,400
Speaker 3: It was a beautiful Hama. I love you, he does, seriously.

87
00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:12,680
Speaker 2: That's the thing. We love you so much, Rabs. I

88
00:05:12,760 --> 00:05:15,480
Speaker 2: just I enjoyed working with you so much. I used

89
00:05:15,520 --> 00:05:17,840
Speaker 2: to have so much joy when you come into the

90
00:05:17,839 --> 00:05:21,080
Speaker 2: studio and we would just laugh constantly, and it was

91
00:05:21,160 --> 00:05:23,599
Speaker 2: just it was just always a treat. And I'm I'm

92
00:05:23,640 --> 00:05:25,680
Speaker 2: sad that you're retiring, but I'm glad that you're going

93
00:05:25,720 --> 00:05:27,680
Speaker 2: on your own terms and you're happy for it.

94
00:05:29,080 --> 00:05:31,680
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, look, look, I'm gonna have to get used

95
00:05:31,680 --> 00:05:37,200
Speaker 1: to it, and I'm happy with the decision. I remember

96
00:05:37,240 --> 00:05:39,880
Speaker 1: those times though Jones used to walk in looking like

97
00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:44,400
Speaker 1: Marlon Brando dressed in leather in the later years left,

98
00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:45,960
Speaker 1: I'm on for the entire progresm.

99
00:05:48,360 --> 00:05:49,520
Speaker 3: Nothing much has changed.

100
00:05:50,040 --> 00:05:53,520
Speaker 2: I still look great, you mean sure? Still got it? Well, Rabs,

101
00:05:53,520 --> 00:05:56,240
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to you commentating exclusively on the living

102
00:05:56,320 --> 00:05:59,559
Speaker 2: Room on Friday night. That's not how you make a shell.

103
00:06:03,880 --> 00:06:04,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, well done.

104
00:06:06,920 --> 00:06:09,080
Speaker 2: It's always great to talk about it, didn't you. Yeah,

105
00:06:09,240 --> 00:06:11,800
Speaker 2: I had to go, but you're the master. Our State

106
00:06:11,800 --> 00:06:13,560
Speaker 2: of Origin, by the way, is alive and free on

107
00:06:13,640 --> 00:06:15,960
Speaker 2: nine this Wednesday at seven o'clock. Will you you'll obviously

108
00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:17,200
Speaker 2: be watching the game wraps.

109
00:06:18,279 --> 00:06:21,359
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. Look, I'm not leaving the game with

110
00:06:21,440 --> 00:06:24,680
Speaker 1: any bitterness. I mean I leave as a member of

111
00:06:24,720 --> 00:06:26,719
Speaker 1: their hall, if i am, and I'm very very proud

112
00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:29,880
Speaker 1: of that. And the game has been absolutely wonderful to

113
00:06:30,040 --> 00:06:33,160
Speaker 1: me and in fact, you know Origin and I I've

114
00:06:33,160 --> 00:06:35,919
Speaker 1: sat there for thirty three years with the best seed

115
00:06:35,960 --> 00:06:39,919
Speaker 1: in the house, and surrounded by the best co commentators

116
00:06:40,360 --> 00:06:43,599
Speaker 1: there are, and entertained by the best footballers there are.

117
00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:47,200
Speaker 1: So I mean, it's it's pretty hard to be regretful.

118
00:06:48,279 --> 00:06:50,440
Speaker 2: Well, we should do. We should get Amanda to take

119
00:06:50,520 --> 00:06:51,560
Speaker 2: us out for lunch.

120
00:06:51,560 --> 00:06:55,040
Speaker 3: Right, Sure, I'd be thrilled too, Ray, I'd be thrilled.

121
00:06:55,160 --> 00:06:56,600
Speaker 2: Go, we'll go out for lunch and manner all buy

122
00:06:56,839 --> 00:06:57,320
Speaker 2: just you and me.

123
00:06:57,360 --> 00:07:02,520
Speaker 3: We'll get James to gov and see a movie we

124
00:07:02,760 --> 00:07:03,120
Speaker 3: see if.

125
00:07:03,040 --> 00:07:03,680
Speaker 1: You could fit it in.

126
00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:06,440
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for taking the time to Rob today.

127
00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:07,400
Speaker 3: We really appreciate it.

128
00:07:07,480 --> 00:07:10,040
Speaker 1: And thank you lovely to talk to you.

129
00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:11,560
Speaker 2: Good on you right, Warren There