Review Best GF Commentary

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Sep 15, 2007
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Personally I don't really care if someone 'loves us' or 'never gives us credit'.
Pundits are paid to give opinions and sometimes, they are going to be negative towards us. The recent vitriol directed to David King bc he tipped sydney by a lot annoyed me.

That said, I've listened to them all quite a few times recently (long commute..) and for the large part, agree with the op's rankings. Got a long train ride ahead of me so here are my thoughts...

1. ABC. Buckley was fantastic, best special comments out of the lot. I hope he gets sacked soon so he can be back in this role more often. Kenelly was strong too and his sing song accent was a delight, he was a pro considering how much he would of been hurting. McClure was fine if a bit grumpy and Morphett fills me with nostalgia. Special note for the lack of ads.

=2. MMM. These guys are my pick usually and I listened to them live on the day. I know they're a bit blokey and that usually bothers me (see Mick Malloy) but their chemistry is so good, genuinely funny. Lyon is very astute. Darcy is a decent play by play caller as he's not offering opinions. I love jb but I thought he was a bit flat this time. Spud focuses on defenders all the time but that makes a nice change.

=2. AFL Live. Like the op, first time I've heard Rex in years and for raw excitement, he is the best. He was still getting excited late in the 4th. Donergan is strong and balances Rex nicely. I also like Wallet, top 3 for comments along with Lyon and Bucks. Also his childish excitement at hawthorn winning was infectious. Billy was ok. Doesn't offer much. Crowd noise seemed to be the loudest but that may of been the recording.

=3 KRock.
These guys were pretty good. Bearing in mind they are cats, they only mentioned Geelong once and that was a relevant comment re 2011. The play by play guys were pros. The only guy I knew by name was McGrath and he was the worst. He was flat, negative and just plain s**t. He didn't hide his disappointment as well as the others, tipped sydney to win by heaps and was pissed off with them right through. They were the only guys to mention the gf sprint for obvious reasons but that's ok, and they did it with levity.

=3 NIRS.
Chris Johnson was good. I like crackers but he is a bit 'rabbity old man' for me. I never caught the names of the play by play guys, one was getting called undies all night. They were solid but lacked polish. They had an odd obsession with Simon Merideth.

Last 3AW.
BT has let his tv ego ruin his commentary. He was one of my (and many others) favourites back in his mmm days, thought he might return to his best for the gf but he was rubbish. Got over excited every single time sydney kicked two in a row, including halfway through the third. Shaw is just terrible, offers nothing, he's such a ******* moron. I like Lloyd and his analysis was good as always but he just can't speak properly, teamed with Shaw it was a disaster. Lane was his eloquent, poetic best again and focused on the positives all day (probably one of if not the best play-by-play caller of the lot) but even he couldn't keep this ship afloat.

I've not managed to get the sen call links to work yet (downloaded the rest elsewhere)
 
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Personally I don't really care if someone 'loves us' or 'never gives us credit'.
Pundits are paid to give opinions and sometimes, they are going to be negative towards us. The recent vitriol directed to David King bc he tipped sydney by a lot was just pathetic.
It wasn't the fact he tipped Sydney by a lot that got me fired up. It was because he carries on all the time about stats and despite there being plenty of stats that fully supported a Hawthorn win (myself, Hawkk and a few others here posted plenty of them in the lead up) he only presented the ones that supported the Sydney tip. The media is meant to be fair and unbiased and it was anything but. You personally don't care what they think and that's good for you. I don't actually care what they think either but in the week leading up to a GF that features my side it would be nice to hear some proper analysis that is split between the two teams relatively evenly. What we got was 85% on how the Swans would win it, 10% on how they could lose it (basically they couldn't) and 5% on how the Hawks could steal it but won't.

Like you said, he's paid to give his opinion. This also means he's paid to research his opinion and back it up. If he did in fact do that then he did a half arsed job of it and had likely already decided he'd tip the Swans and just wanted to find some justification for that. But part of all that is that he's also paid to cop the criticism from the viewers. Especially when he completely stuffs it up.
 

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Sep 15, 2007
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Who cares man? So what if 85% said sydney had it in the bag? Why put so much value on their opinions?

It's their job, do you want them to lie just so the tips are 50/50?

Criticism is fine and pathetic probably wasn't the right word to use, but some of the bile spewed forth towards King was - IMO - uncalled for.
 
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Who cares man? So what if 85% said sydney had it in the bag? Why put so much value on their opinions?

It's their job, do you want them to lie just so the tips are 50/50?
I think what irritated a few of us (and, yeah, we really should get over it) was the overwhelming-ness of the Sydney bandwagon, and that our own credentials were so quickly forgotten.

For example, I remember repeatedly hearing all about our challenge to stop the vaunted Sydney forward line, and wondered how it had been so easily forgotten that our own outscored Sydney's by about 50 goals!

But, yeah, they can say what they want. Makes it sweeter to let them know how wrong they were afterwards, though..:D
 
Sep 17, 2004
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It wasn't the fact he tipped Sydney by a lot that got me fired up. It was because he carries on all the time about stats and despite there being plenty of stats that fully supported a Hawthorn win (myself, Hawkk and a few others here posted plenty of them in the lead up) he only presented the ones that supported the Sydney tip. The media is meant to be fair and unbiased and it was anything but. You personally don't care what they think and that's good for you. I don't actually care what they think either but in the week leading up to a GF that features my side it would be nice to hear some proper analysis that is split between the two teams relatively evenly. What we got was 85% on how the Swans would win it, 10% on how they could lose it (basically they couldn't) and 5% on how the Hawks could steal it but won't.

Like you said, he's paid to give his opinion. This also means he's paid to research his opinion and back it up. If he did in fact do that then he did a half arsed job of it and had likely already decided he'd tip the Swans and just wanted to find some justification for that. But part of all that is that he's also paid to cop the criticism from the viewers. Especially when he completely stuffs it up.

This

I just want David King held to account for his objective assessment that's all :)
 
Who cares man? So what if 85% said sydney had it in the bag? Why put so much value on their opinions?

It's their job, do you want them to lie just so the tips are 50/50?

Criticism is fine and pathetic probably wasn't the right word to use, but some of the bile spewed forth towards King was - IMO - uncalled for.
It's not their opinions I value. It's the many hours in the week leading up to the Grand Final that I as a supporter of one of the competing teams choose to assign to everything footy related that I can. It's something you may not value but it is something that many of us do given the opportunity to soak in the fact that your team is playing off in the Grand Final may not happen again in your life time.

And when I do I expect to listen to some preview analysis of the game that gives about 50-50 time to why each side can win and then following that the personalities can give their tips and if they all want to go for Sydney that's fine - at least both cases have been heard.

The reason King copped the most bile was due to him being that "stats man" on Fox Footy. The one guy who really should have been developing his opinion from the stats but was instead developing stats to support his opinion. The constant claims that all his stats pointed to a Sydney win, and not just any win but a "big win". A 6-8 goal win. A 68 point win when there was a mistake with the graphic but he just brushed it off with "might as well leave it at that!". He was wrong and most of us here knew it. We knew there was plenty of good stats to support a Hawk win and while I doubt there were many at all who foresaw what actually ended up happening we still knew it wasn't going to be the result David King tipped based off "his stats". And clearly the result justified most of whatever was said about him.
 
Sep 15, 2007
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I used to be the same. Guess I've just mellowed in my old age (33). Don't see the point in getting wound up about an opinion.

Anyway it was a flippant qualifier before I gave my thoughts on something much more positive. ie listening to gf commentary over and over.

Play on
 
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JustKickIt

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Sep 5, 2009
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Tayg Kennelly was very annoying tho.
Agreed..... I watched it on tv but with the abc on the radio. I was almost sorry I did when I heard him on there. Even he had to give up after a while though.
 

Finley Hawk

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For those of you who have listened to every commentary of the game, what was your favourite? For me;

Best: AFL Live - Rex Hunt, Billy Brownless - Rex called it beautifully. Went off Rex for a few years but it's clearly the best.

Have only listened to the AFL Live call so far, loved it, especially when big Rex fired up the fat lady half way through the 2nd quarter (when Hodgey kicked the goal after intercepting the sydney kick in)
 

Rushed_Behind

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can I ask how I can listen to the download on an ipad? I try going through the links provided but it says safari cant download or some sh1t. I am the polar opposite of tech savvy so if its a simple solution I apologise.
 
can I ask how I can listen to the download on an ipad? I try going through the links provided but it says safari cant download or some sh1t. I am the polar opposite of tech savvy so if its a simple solution I apologise.
Which links? The one's by dommat appear to have a lot of dead links now so won't work any where now.

I haven't tried seysearles ones yet but they are in a zip archive (to keep file size down) and I doubt the ipad is capable of unzipping them.

Someone may be able to upload them to Soundcloud or something similar and post the streaming link here for you. I'd do it myself but I haven't downloaded all those files to my computer yet and don't have a Soundcloud account myself (so it may not even be possible).
 
Apr 1, 2010
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Posted this in the other radio commentary thread and realised its best suited for this thread.

Just listened to the ABC call. Got to say it's my favorite so far (have listened to just 7 and MMM)

So far I would go ABC, 7, MMM.

MMM is normally not bad and can be entertaining but there was too much emphasis on Sydney and not enough on how well we were playing and causing their terrible performance.

As posters have said. Buckley has huge admiration and respect for our club. I did find his call of Shiels being an elite user of the pill confusing though haha.
 

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Rushed_Behind

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Which links? The one's by dommat appear to have a lot of dead links now so won't work any where now.

I haven't tried seysearles ones yet but they are in a zip archive (to keep file size down) and I doubt the ipad is capable of unzipping them.

Someone may be able to upload them to Soundcloud or something similar and post the streaming link here for you. I'd do it myself but I haven't downloaded all those files to my computer yet and don't have a Soundcloud account myself (so it may not even be possible).


All this zipper talk and cloud talk. I got no idea. Just thinking if I undo my trousers and stare at the sky it will work.:confused:

Thanks anyway.
 
This

I just want David King held to account for his objective assessment that's all :)
Gerald Healy should be held more accountable for his 0/6 2013/2014 Hawthorn versus 'finals opponent tally.
 
Have only listened to the AFL Live call so far, loved it, especially when big Rex fired up the fat lady half way through the 2nd quarter (when Hodgey kicked the goal after intercepting the sydney kick in)
"It's been a real sandpaper job" is my new ringtone.
 
Gerald Healy should be held more accountable for his 0/6 2013/2014 Hawthorn versus 'finals opponent tally.

I don't want him made accountable - the day I worry is the day that Gerald Healy tips against us
 

Rushed_Behind

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Just downloaded afl live commentary and synced it up to DVD on mute. Rex is good for excitement the whole way through but when you watch it, it's obvious why he didn't do TV. (To my memory)

I still rate it though.

ABC tomorrow night. :D
 

Sleutheren

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AFL Live is my favourite. Rex is great and Donegan balances him out perfectly.
In saying that, I think because I've seen the GF 3 or 4 times now and listened to all the other broadcasts, I know what's happening when they're calling it. Rex isn't exactly descriptive so being able to visualise the play as he gets loud and silly helps for sure.

Also, like someone previously mentioned, the crowd noise also seems louder on their broadcast.
 
Sep 15, 2007
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Tayg Kennelly was very annoying tho.

Couldn't disagree more. Bear in mind he is dyed red and white, the match as it went on must of been killing him and he didn't let it show through once.

He fawned over goodes a couple of times but to be fair, he played a decent game.

Thought his analysis was really good. And for me that's what I'm listening for
 
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Oct 23, 2014
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Couldn't disagree more. Bear in mind he is dyed red and white, the match as it went on must of been killing him and he didn't let it show through once.

What about comments like "Well done Reg" when Grundy took a mark? The ultimate professional is Anthony Hudson, who commentated the 2008 GF without any hint of being a Geelong supporter, or maybe he's just not into his football enough to care.
 
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