The calm before the storm for rugby’s television rollercoaster

There was just over an hour to go to kick-off at The Stoop last Sunday, but Daniel Hudson was leaning on a piece of pricey-looking equipment like it was a trusty ledge in his favourite pub and exuding the calm of a man without a care in the world.

The reality is that he was stood in an Outside Broadcast (OB) truck parked metres from the ground and which costs a cool £4.5m (€5.6m). Harlequins and Leinster were about to do battle and it was his job as BT Sport’s match director to catch every last bit of it.

For Hudson, who among other things has overseen a couple of Champions League finals and won industry awards for bringing the game of poker to life on screen, it was just another gig in his claustrophobic and hi-tech world.