JOEL Creasey and Myf Warhurst looked a little tearstained and a lot shell-shocked when they walked into the bar of a Kiev hotel last May.

Just a few hours earlier, their debut as the hosts of SBS’s broadcast of the Eurovision Song Contest in Ukraine got off to the worst possible start thanks to an epic technical malfunction.

Back in Australia, fans could see and hear all the action on the stage but there was dead air from the commentary box in the arena.

As Ukrainian technicians crouched between their legs to reconfigure cables, Creasey and Warhurst were all over social media trying to find out what Australian viewers were hearing, or more importantly, not hearing.

“ARE WE ON AIR OR OFF AIR?! SOMEBODY GET ME 18 LITRES OF RED WINE,” Creasey tweeted.

Both personalities can laugh about the disaster now. And the inevitable troll pile-on which had kicked off weeks before the contest after they were announced as the new hosts when long-time Eurovision commentators Julia Zemiro and Sam Pang bowed out.

Of course Creasey eloquently satirises the technical snafu and social media storm in his latest stand-up show Blonde Bombshell.

“I’m just wondering how I can recreate the Ukrainian technical f ...-up in Portugal; maybe pour a glass of red wine over the board?” he says.

“You saw us after it happened, we were fully scarred. I was yelling and screaming and crying and it was all out of our control.

“But it can’t get any worse than that and Myf and I have become best buds because of it, we even went to Bali together.”

As his bud Warhurst says, when it all goes wrong, you find out what someone is made of.

“It was an awful experience but the best thing that could have happened to us because nothing else could top it, so that feels quite liberating,” she says, laughing.

“But you’re right, I did forget about the three men on the floor in our squashed booth plugging things in between my legs.”

And their Kiev experience did get better, the live snafu fixed for the prime time broadcast of the first semi-final which landed our 2017 representation Isaiah Firebrace a spot in the grand final, where he would come ninth.

Back home, the cyberhate dissipated and the hundreds of thousands of Eurovision fanboys and girls who embrace this collision of talent and kitsch every year got on with cheering for Australia and whoever else they loved.

Creasey and Warhurst knew they would never win over the smattering of Eurovision tragics determined not to like them.

“We did cop criticism from the people who loved Sam and Julia. They left of their own free will, it wasn’t like we took their jobs; Sam called me when I got the gig to congratulate us. So did Julia,” Warhurst says.

“I loved their work, I’m a Eurovision fan and there was no bad blood but some people didn’t get that memo.”

RocKwiz queen Zemiro, who has also signed on to host the new Seven talent quest All Together Now, revealed she left the role after eight years because it had become “weird” to host the SBS broadcast when Australia began competing.

The respected television personality told The Music Podcast With Dave and Neil she didn’t feel as free in her commentary.

“To be a regular member, you are taking away some other European country’s possibility of being in the final,” Zemiro said.

“So now that we’re in a semi and we have to qualify to get to a final, you’re taking a spot away and I do think that’s weird because we aren’t a part of Europe.”

“Now, that’s my opinion. It’s not everyone’s opinion, I understand that. But for me, it made all of a sudden, as commentators, how is it when you can watch it you can be fairly free ... and then all of a sudden you’re in it, it’s like going to someone’s house and going to a dinner party and saying ‘I don’t really like the food’.

“You’re not as free to be able to have fun with what you’re watching because you’re in it.”

Warhurst said she feels free to be a “fangirl and be objective” after years of working on music radio.

“I do appreciate that other countries don’t get a slot because of us but I didn’t feel that was a concern last year,” she says.

Creasey said he has “no problem with Australia competing.”

“We are Australia and we are stuck down here and do not get the benefits that everyone else has with neighbours and mates,” he says.

“We take up three and a half minutes of their stage time to sing a song and I think that’s fine.”

This year that song will be We Got Love and sung by pop sweetheart Jessica Mauboy.

Creasey and Warhurst honestly, truly, unequivocally believe Mauboy can win the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest.

It’s a big ask. Dami Im came oh-so-close, winning the jury vote but coming second once the viewer votes were added, when she competed in 2016.

Two years later, the novelty of Australia competing has waned and we are seen as genuine contenders. That will ultimately affect the voting of countries who have been trading allegiances for decades.

But the song is an aspirational banger and is closing in on one million Spotify streams and 1.8 million YouTube views.

“I love it; I think it’s perfect. It’s got the motivational lyrics which tie in with Eurovision being a reflection of the state of the world,” Warhurst says.

“The songs that come up in the contest appear to be the ones that the world needs right now.

“You look at last year and the winning Portugal entry and I think the world needed something quiet and internal and minimalist because the world was going crazy right then.

“Maybe the world is allowed to party this year and need a banger like Jess with We Got Love.

“I think it could do it.”

Eurovision Top 40 Songs airs on SBS on May 5 from 8.30pm.

The 2018 Eurovision Song Contest airs from May 9 to 13 with live and prime time broadcasts of the semi-finals and final.