As Dennis Cometti’s 49-year broadcasting career draws to its big-game conclusion on the weekend with his final AFL grand final appearance, it’s an opportune time to take a look back on some of the commentary great’s best one-liners.
The man himself says that his humour is derived from his days trying to entertain listeners on the FM radio broadcasts of his early career, as well as teenage afternoons firing off wisecracks from the hill at Perth’s Leederville Oval. Through it all, he’s learned that half the battle for commentators is finding the right time to introduce humour into the broadcast.
“What you find with football matches, is that football matches tend to be very similar. They’re sort of like Lamingtons in a way,” he says. “They’re made to a formula. There’s stoppages, ball-ups, there are boundary throw-ins. What I found over the years sitting and watching is that you can see where you can say things and where you can’t say things.”
“Obviously if a bloke is running down the wing bouncing the ball it’s not necessarily the time to offer an opinion about something else. But there are no surprises in football games, so it gives you a blank canvas to sort of inject yourself where you know you can inject yourself, and that’s at stoppages and boundary throw-ins and missed goals. There’s an opportunity to get in there and show your personality.”
Nobody in Australian sports broadcasting has produced such a quotable aray of one liners, and the gags Cometti has dreamt up on all those long-haul flights between Perth and the east coast over the years will go down in football folklore. This list kicks off with Cometti’s personal favourite.
On Melbourne midfielder Adam Yze:
Remember the name: Y-Z-E – terrific young player, bad Scrabble hand.
On the work of Bulldogs star Tony Liberatore as he burrowed into a pack:
Liberatore went into that last pack optimistically and came out misty optically.
On former Melbourne, Sydney and Collingwood ruckman Darren Jolly:
Jolly gets it to Green. Where’s the giant?
On a Carlton champion:
There’s Koutoufides – more vowels than possessions today.
Closely assessing the team list in his Football Record:
Barlow to Bateman...The Hawks are attacking alphabetically.
On the cliches of sport:
So it’s back to the old drawing board. Obviously a luxury that the guy who invented the drawing board didn’t have – Cometti on the struggles of coaches.
On Brisbane midfiedler Simon Black:
He’s like Diogenes or O.J. Simpson – he’s always searching.
On an errant shot at goal by former Richmond star Darren Gasper:
Ahh, Gasper the unfriendly post.
Upon seeing Port Adelaide’s Josh Carr approached by a tackler:
Carr – covered by a third party.
On a collision between Carr’s brother Matthew and former Docker Trent Croad:
Carr was just poleaxed by his own team-mate. Does that qualify as Croad rage?
On the eternal struggles of the tall defender:
Right now Shannon Watt looks like a man in a darkened room trying to discover where all the furniture is.
On a West Coast Eagles champion:
The way Jakovich is playing today he’s closer to teething than retiring.
On Collingwood’s burly full-forward of the 2000s:
When Anthony Rocca backs into a pack, he beeps.
Harking back to his FM radio days with another 1960s music reference:
The Dockers’ defence is in disarray. Everybody wants to be Gladys Knight, nobody wants to be the Pips.
On the unfortunate lot of a lumbering Adelaide ruckman:
Shaun Rehn has been terrific again today but look at him, he’s paid a price. Like a Saint Bernard in a heatwave.
On a Brownlow medal-winning former Bulldogs and Bears star:
Hardie decides to have a bounce. Look at him go. Amazing. Not bad for a guy who’s built like a pirate’s lunch table.
On St Kilda’s premiership drought:
The Saints have had more five-year plans than Fidel Castro.
On the one-dimensional kicking skills of Essendon forward Scott Lucas:
I think it’s safe to say Lucas takes his right leg out there purely for balance.
On his former colleague Robert DiPierdomenico:
That’s the latest from the huddles. For those of you who don’t know, Dipper is a graduate of the Don Corleone school of elocution.
On a former Adelaide and Geelong livewire’s unpredictable moves:
I swear if Ronnie Burns were building a house he’d start with the roof.
On football tactics:
Some people might say that was a set play, but if it was, the Swans must have copied it off a Portuguese bus timetable.
On Simon Black, again:
A lot of talk these days is about ‘inside players’. Well, as we saw there, if Simon Black was any more inside he’d be a pancreas.
On a clash between Essendon and Hawthorn great Paul Salmon and the more slimline St Kilda star Nicky ‘Elvis’ Winmar:
Just as Winmar landed, big Salmon came crashing down on top of him. They’re slowly getting up and now I can report the building has left the Elvis.
