There’s better things to get yourself in a lather about than the state of football commentary. But are Aussie rules fans being short changed? Instead of letting the play speak for itself, the AFL approach is to cram as many men (and they’re always men – that’s a given) into the box as health and safety regulations permit. We’ve had all sorts – masters of their craft, clock-watchers and the occasionally transcendental. Let’s see how the current crop are tracking at the half-way mark of the season.
COMMENTATORS
Your play-by-play callers whose job is to relay all the basics and run the show.
A-graders
Dennis Cometti – Seven Network: Cometti’s hovercraft tones, his ability to ad lib and to remain lucid during tense moments have been footballing staples since the late 80s. In recent years, he has bewailed the state of the modern game and his calls haven’t quite had the same zing. But a spike in the standard of play this year seems to have given him a second wind. Bows out as one of the all-time greats.
Anthony Hudson – Fox Footy: Hudson occasionally veers into special comments mode and tends to drift off during blowouts. But Hudson – astonishingly now 45-years-old – has provided at least half a dozen of footy’s great grabs over the past few decades.
A-minus
Eddie McGuire – Fox Footy: At the risk of forfeiting half a dozen lifelong friendships, I don’t mind Eddie as a commentator. He knows the game inside out and he knows when to dial down the jocularity. He’s clearly modelled his calling on one of his heroes, Lou Richards. And let’s face it, every minute he’s in the commentary box is another minute he’s not drawing comparisons between coaching succession plans and moon landings.
B-plus
Adam Papalia – Fox Footy: A newcomer and interstate specialist who eschews banter and in-jokes, preferring to concentrate on the football. It’s a novel and welcome approach.
B-graders
Bruce McAvaney – Seven Network: Bruce has banked a lot of credits. His calls of the last 200 metres of Haile Gebrselassie’s win in Sydney, Carl Lewis in Tokyo and Hichem El Guerrouj in Athens were just about as good as sports commentary gets. A great footy caller back in the day. ,he still has his moments, particularly in big games. No-one’s questioning his passion. He never fumbles with players’ names. He never holds the sport in contempt. But…. his tendency to unpack the adjectives, the whole “you just get the feeling” thing and his obsession with how the next goal fits into the overall narrative are major turn-offs. Too good a broadcaster to bow out drowning in drool.
Hamish McLachlan – Seven Network: Hamish says some odd things. When he’s in interview mode, his sentences have a telegraphic, back-to front-quality about them (“Jimmy. Cats. 2016. Chance?”) But his conversational calling style is curiously agreeable and his play-by-play work continues to improve.
Sandy Roberts – Fox Footy: Gave us some of footy’s great commentary moments. and is still capable of a rollicking call. But Sandy, what the blazes was that Word Smith documentary about?!
C-plus
Basil Zempilas – Seven Network: Every Saturday evening, Big Baz parks himself in the command centre at Footy Central which, for reasons that have never really been explained, resembles an air traffic control monitoring centre. Zempilas is prone to a faux pas or ten, gets far too many players’ names wrong and is the subject of considerable online opprobrium. On the improve but better suited to the matinees.
C-graders
Dwayne Russell – Fox Footy: Easily excitable, disinclined to modulate his voice and guilty of such atrocities as “chaos ball” and “from the paint”, Dwayne is quite a polarising figure. When there’s a comeback brewing, his whole shtick works. But Fox needs to employ someone to water down his red cordial. Not every game is the greatest of all time. Not every sentence warrants an exclamation mark. And the opening quarter of a NAB Challenge match is probably not the best time to be yelling out, “Oh baby! That’s as good as it gets!”
Luke Darcy – Seven Network: Love the way he goes about it? Well, no one’s denying he knows his stuff. And he’s far from an offensive presence. But he’s no play-by-play caller. His specialties are the patently obvious and the word “massive”. Better deployed on special comments?
D-graders
Brian Taylor – Seven Network: We get that Saturday nights are different. We get that in an increasingly solemnised game, a note of levity can be a good thing. And we get that in tight finishes and on radio, BT more than holds his own. Radio, after all, compels him to describe what’s actually happening. But on television, the head comes off and the turnip goes on. There’s a kind of forced imbecility to the whole thing that betrays a casual contempt for the role, the game and the viewers. If you’d just landed from, say, Finland, and listened to this in your hotel room, the whole thing would be bewildering. For rusted on fans, you can multiply that tenfold.
SPECIAL COMMENTS/BOUNDARY RIDERS
Your providers of that telling snippet of expert information. In theory.
A-graders
David King – Fox Footy: Kingy loves a stat. He’s subservient to the statistic. He loves nothing better than hunching over a laptop in The Lab, analysing data, crunching numbers and slicing and dicing the “premiership ready quadrants”. Though his predictions often come back to bite him, he’s authoritative and goes above and beyond his job description.
Dermott Brereton – Fox Footy: “I wake up every morning, without any precedence, and I smile,” Brereton once told Mike Sheahan. “I’m just happy to be there, get up, get into life, have a bit of fun and spread it around a bit.” It’s hard to dislike a man who says that. And when Derm’s holding court on a topic he’s qualified to talk about, particularly key position forward play, there’s none better. About 25% of what he says makes more sense than anyone else in the game. It’s the remaining 75% that’s problematic. When he’s bored, gets the giggles, starts playing verbal jujitsu with himself or pontificates on who’s a “ripping bloke” – it can start to grate. As Deadwood’s Al Swearagan said, “Advance the subject, or pick up a broom!”
B-plus
Jonathan Brown – Fox Footy: Gravelly-gutted, tight-shirted and surprisingly stern individual who’s as honest as the day is long. We still haven’t quite come to terms with him back-announcing Rihanna on breakfast radio but he’s been a great addition to the punditariat.
Jason Dunstall – Fox Footy: “The Chief” can be very critical, particularly (and not very convincingly) when it comes to his old club. When he strays into vaudeville, a very different man emerges. In straight-guy-mode however, he remains one of footy’s shrewdest analysts.
Matthew Richardson – Seven Network: An affable, level-headed and ever-improving operator who provided the most poignant grab of the year (albeit on radio) when Bob Murphy wrecked his knee.
B-graders
Leigh Matthews – Seven Network: Lethal cops a few whacks these days and he’s been shunted back to the Sunday afternoon slot. But in an increasingly noisy genre, where many seem to think they’re being paid by the word, his unvarnished approach still has its place. Probably the greatest player of all time, it takes a lot to impress him. Not many of us, after all, walk past our own statue on the way to work.
C-plus
Wayne Carey – Seven Network: A lot of ink has been spilt on the whys and wherefores of Carey’s return to the mainstream media. Goes hard when he needs to but at times we’re not convinced he’s all that invested.
C-graders
Danny Frawley – Fox Footy: Whenever we hear Frawley on radio, he’s yelling out, “That it’s, I’ve had a gutful of you blokes!” He and his mates are constantly ribbing, needling and heaping shit on one another. Frankly, it sounds exhausting. His TV work is comparatively straight-laced, mainly consisting of repeating the phrase “contested ball” and “caught ball watching” every few minutes. On Sunday evenings however, he dons a mankini or reindeer costume and makes his way to the studios of the show Bounce, the fresh hell of which warrants its own quarterly essay.
Cameron Ling – Seven Network: Lingy, we want to love you. But stop yelling! And stop explaining the game to us like we’re eight years old!
Alistair Lynch - Fox Footy: Fond of the words “absolutely” and “cracking”, yet the name Leuenberger consistently gets the better of him.
D-plus
Barry Hall – Fox Footy: Let’s not tiptoe around this. It may just be me. But I can barely understand a word Barry says.
