Carlton Supporters Club

From the cheap seats of AFL commentary

Another season in the books. Time to take a look at the year's efforts in the noble field of footy commentary.

All opinions are solely the province of your humble columnist, and as likely as not, represent those of nobody else whatsoever.
 
This time, match announcers, next week the special comments guys.

BRUCE McAVANEY – There's an old expression, "The less said the better", and there's nothing in that aphorism that couldn't improve The Bruce's match calls. Not every idea that pops into anyone's head is gold. You all saw Donald Trump in the first Presidential Debate. And maybe just ease back the throttle on those player nicknames around 300 per cent. Somewhere under all the gusherama​ lies the ghost of a perfectly capable football commentator.

DWAYNE RUSSELL – If Alfred Hitchcock had made a movie about Dwayne, it might have been entitled The Man Who Talked Too Much. Also, regarding the endless leather-lunged shilling for the AFL, the game in question, the attendance and everything else short of the quality of the hot dogs on sale, (a) nobody needs it and (b) that's Sandy Roberts' gig.

BRIAN TAYLOR – The overwhelming impression I get from this caller is that the game gets in the way of putting over himself and his buddies in the booth. It seems barely possible that these priorities are not shared by those subjected to the entertainment stylings of the Brian Taylor Saturday Night Zoo Crew while trying to negotiate a football telecast.

ANTHONY HUDSON – Calls a good, straight footy match. Has the voice for it. Handy at jockeying his calling team. The odd wry humorous touch sneaks in around the edges. A pro.

HAMISH McLACHLAN – When "Hammer" heads off into his all-but-inevitable golf and tennis metaphors during match calls, I'm right with him. I wish he was calling those sports instead too.

ADAM PAPALIA – Guy you maybe didn't recognise who picked up some calling on Fox Footy this year. Clean-voiced, no guff, straight match caller with an obvious knack for it. Sort of Anthony Hudson II – The Adventure Continues.

BASIL ZEMPILAS – This may be bucking the general trend on Big Baz, but the patently unfeigned enthusiasm counts for something, and despite the fashion, he never puts himself over the game. Surgical analysis, well, probably not.

LUKE DARCY – If Stifler hadn't been shifted to co-calling with BT, that would have left him free for even more self-promoting leaden banter sapping the will to live on Saturday nights. Also, purely as a caller, there are worse.

EDDIE McGUIRE – A bit "Hits of the 90s" but still capable anchoring a crew, as long as he and Dermott don't disappear up the alley of "Vintage nightclub battles won and lost".

SANDY ROBERTS – Kind of Basil Zempilas plus about 80 years. Tireless efforts to incorporate the cutting edge footy science jargon of the day deserve comedy category consideration at the Logies.

DENNIS COMETTI – Nobody should constrict their oxygen intake waiting for another one of these to come around.

McAvaney. Sickening contrived emotion. And listen to him continually asking his co-commentators to agree with him. Bloody irritating. Usually goes something like this ....<insert name> has really stepped up today hasn't he? And then poor well-credentialed colleague usually tries to ignore him.

He is unbearable.

BT is about as funny as anthrax. Basically doing a really sjiithouse impersonation of Rex Hunt.

McAvaney. Sickening contrived emotion. And listen to him continually asking his co-commentators to agree with him. Bloody irritating. Usually goes something like this ....<insert name> has really stepped up today hasn't he? And then poor well-credentialed colleague usually tries to ignore him.

He is unbearable.

Why don't these guy watch some EPL or old ABC footage (The Winners) and understand that television doesn't need a radio call.....WE HAVE PICTURES!!

The game are over called!!!

Concluding our review of the 2016 AFL TV commentators, we take a butcher's at the ex-players who fulfil the role of providing "expert" or "special" comments during live match telecasts.

Once again, all the opinions presented are exclusively those of your humble columnist.

TIM WATSON – Had a solid run with VFL caller Jason Bennett when a lot of the regular crew were away in Olympics-Ville. Beyond that, he can seem a little like many workplace meetings – stuffy and dull.

MATTHEW RICHARDSON – A reliable blend of footy horse sense and pleasingly colloquial jolts of sharp-ish humour, inexplicably wasted for extended stretches of 2016 in a boundary reporter role, or on the will-to-live draining Brian Taylor Saturday Night Zoo Crew.

MARK RICCIUTO – Despite a voice which suggests he was grabbing forty winks immediately prior to being shaken awake to provide comment, routinely offers particularly acute judgment on teams, play and players. Downside – can be brutal, and may burble.

WAYNE CAREY – Years ago, on Fox Footy, Wayne Carey was as clinically precise a match analyst as we've experienced on AFL TV coverage here. Many years and colourful life experiences later, The Wayner provides that about 15 per cent of the time, plus packing material.

ALISTAIR LYNCH – Remains one of the more insightful and user-friendly match analysts around, when Fox Footy occasionally remembers to use him.

JONATHAN BROWN – Overcame a voice which sounds like a bullfrog swallowing a tree to consistently impress, particularly with his knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of individual players.

CAMERON LING – Much as with many silent movie stars, it could be argued that Cam Ling's career was ruined by the coming of sound.

LEIGH MATTHEWS – It did seem that if Seven sidelined him any further, he'd be getting the coffees. Still has football smarts to spare, which he mostly dispenses straight as a die, and blessedly, with virtually no fashionable footy science jargon.

DANNY FRAWLEY – On Get Smart, following some bizarre, convoluted ploy, Agent 86 would smugly conclude, while fooling nobody: "Ah, the old 'Gun in the ashtray, triggered by turning the lamp off' trick". Danny Frawley's analysis during matches is sometimes like that. He also says, "Triffic mark," (or kick) when it's a triffic mark (or kick). That's about it.

JASON DUNSTALL – When he's on his mettle, still pretty handy. When his colleagues head to blather-land, he may produce balloon-filler material.

BRAD JOHNSON – But what a lovely guy.

DAVID KING – Only manufacturers producing raffle tickets and bingo cards offer a more consistently reliable source of numerical confetti.

GERARD HEALY/TONY SHAW – Ideally, apart from exceptionally astute aging analysts, this may be more a recent ex-players' role. Plenty of studio gigs going in the Fox Footy "Dad's Army" universe.

DERMOTT BRERETON – The great polariser offers a heady blend of shockingly astute observation and great reams of seemingly random blather that is so off with the pixies that you're half-expecting Peter Jackson to blow in and make one of his famous 13-hour Tolkien movies out of it.