DISCHARGE YOUR GLASSES

You've heard the congratulatory phrase "Give it up for So-and-So". So, here's a variation:

"Can I just say, you gotta give your hands off."

~~ Mark Stone, SEN, Port Melbourne v Box Hill

The work experience team of Mark Stone, Tony Schibeci and Mark Franklin won't be winning any footy media awards. But you never know, it's not as if there is great depth of talent covering our footy.

Seven's Friday night team of McAveney, Cometti, Buckley & Matthews has been terrific since they ironed out the kinks last year. Pity about The Delay. And their Sunday afternoon call has always been a fun filled affair.

ABC radio pulled me away from 3AW and SEN and ended the season as my preferred broadcast. Even with Howdy Doody Drew's 1970s stylings.

MMM is footy for teenage boys.

Ten aims about ten years higher: footy for 20-something boys.

Meanwhile, at Foxtel:

3AW Football gonged at AFMA awards

Gerard Healy: Best Special Commentator – Television

Dwayne Russell: Best Football Caller – Television

Dwayne is a hipster smartarse. You'd think that after saying "It doesn't get any better than that" for the 100th time he'd twig to the inherent flaw in the the previous 99 instances. Chuck in "the paint" which is unfortunately catching on, and "gives it some sky" which is close to the most aggravating phrase I've heard in sport, especially the way Dwayne scrapes it across your ears, and you have one irritating commentator.

Dwayne must have picked up votes by comparison. I mean, while Healy is passable despite style over substance concerns, the commentary of Danny Frawley and Glen Jakovich is completely dreadful. It doesn't get any worse than that.

Richard Hinds:

Lessons in the footy ratings

MAYBE it was during a particularly frenetic moment in a game when a football caller's scream could be heard above a passing 747, yet it was impossible for the listener to discern what was happening outside the commentary box.

Comments

[m0nty]

I must confess to having allowed "the paint" to osmose into my FanFooty match blogs. I shall avoid it in future after this much-needed rebuke.

[Colin Campbell]

I prefer footy on the radio. I think the ABC does a great job.

[Bruce]

I like Lane and Whately. They are conscious of the fact that they are calling for a national audience and so do the best job of telling us what is actually happening. I also mostly agree with their positions on things like holding the ball. Tim occasionally lets a bee get into his bonnet but I refuse to deal with the other clowns.

Vale Clinton Grybas.

[Tony]

Grybas would have been a monty (boom tish) to use "the paint".

Is is too soon after his passing to say that I never liked Clinton's Joe Buck-lite, manufactured American style.

Whately has been on Before The Bounce and he is comprehensively too smart for those footy trogs. Mind you, it wouldn't be hard to shine among the appalling Dunstall/Frawley challenge fiasco.

[RT]

BTB has gone from must see to actively avoiding the shit. League Teams seems like Citizen Cane compared with that rubbish.

[Big Ramifications]

gotta give your hands off = give them a hand + take your hats off[?] I enjoy mixed mataphor spotting.

gives it some sky

What is the etymology of "gives it a big roost"?

The term makes me chuckle.

[Jedediah Leland]

That's Citizen Kane by the way...

[Tony]

I'd give Before The Bounce a big roost. Right out of the Foxtel studios.

"gives it a big roost" = "Goes the journey" with chicken salt.

[Adsy]

We desperately need a AFL Tactics type show in the same guise as NRL Tactics, which I watched fully for the first time the other night, and was fantastic. Would be a good vehicle for a new unknown talent I reckon, instead of the jokers we're already subjected to.

[Tony]

I'd kill for a show like that.

Our shows that are supposed to be entertaining are anything but. (The Footy Show)

Our shows that are supposed to be informative lack good information. (On The Couch.) And don't you get sick of them concocting stats graphics to back up obvious points of view that need no illustration.

And our shows that are a bit of each can't seem to get the mix right between entertainment and information. (The rest.)

If it was up to me, I would cherry pick AFL Teams and Footy Classified.

I'm not a big wrap for the Nine Rugby Footy show. But in general the rugby league shows appear to be more natural and less pretentious than our footy shows.

A tentative observation: is it just possible that it is easier to talk/demonstrate Rugby League tactics.

[TKYCraig]

Wait, the NRL has tactics!?! Here I was thinking it was all about a big bloke getting the ball and running into a different big bloke really fast.

Just listened to the GF (via the internet), both the shouting 3AW and the ABC wa~hless commentary.
Both sounded good for a bloke in Tokyo who gets rock-all footy on the telly or radio here.

Anyway, well done CATS, pinched a cliff-hanger. Saints will have to come back again.

...and my Tigers will need another decade!

[Tony]

I've a sneaking suspicion that the Saints might have missed their window of opportunity. For me, the Malthouse clock has St Kilda at five past the hour. NGASAEB.