- Jul 28, 2012
- 11,081
- 10,430
- AFL Club
- Geelong
- Other Teams
- QPR, Buffalo Bills
The world of football commentary has been littered with horrible cliches that do nothing but serve as bait for remote controls to get thrown through home TV screens. And I'm not talking about guys and gals who flub names or trip on their tongues; play-by-play is tough work, i actually admire a few of them and honestly it's kind of a miracle we don't hear more mispronounced names and explosive swearing during any given game. (BT?) I will pick out one cliche that is used almost every week!
You could be excused for reserving any of your ire for the so called "colour" commentators, as well as those tight buttoned suited former players who fell arse backwards into a job back in the studio, the people hired for their expertise, who have the time to think up something insightful, and then say something completely dumb anyway! They're almost as stupid as the average footy supporter!!
They are the ones who come up with gems like "They wanted it more". This is probably the quintessential piece of non-analysis, the statement that one team beat another not because of skill or strategy or preparation or any of the other things that are observable and measurable. No, they won because they wanted it more! This is something David King would come up with when all else fails!
However, before you start throwing that remote control around your lounge room, the frustrating thing about this comment is that it kind of might be true? Motivation is a significant factor in football with 36 players on the field. It's a major factor in getting footballers to perform. "Wanting it more" does matter. As much as we hate hearing that from our commentary geniuses it's probably true. See Richmond v Swans game last week, they are not as good as Sydney, but the Tigers simply wanted it more!
The thing is as fans with the passionmetre on high in every game, we can only measure who wants it more indirectly by measuring who's playing well and winning, which means we should probably just talk about the teams that are playing well and winning in the first place. As fans, we didn't tune in to see who wants to win more. We're watching to see who's better at winning on any given day and hoping it's the team we support!
Still, we're all guilty of watching a contest and screaming in disgust as one of the players from the team you support gets beaten in a contest because the other bloke "wanted it more".
I was going to mention the "Role Player" which really means a mediocre player who will never be asked for an interview or his autograph, but i'll leave that one alone for the moment..
You could be excused for reserving any of your ire for the so called "colour" commentators, as well as those tight buttoned suited former players who fell arse backwards into a job back in the studio, the people hired for their expertise, who have the time to think up something insightful, and then say something completely dumb anyway! They're almost as stupid as the average footy supporter!!
They are the ones who come up with gems like "They wanted it more". This is probably the quintessential piece of non-analysis, the statement that one team beat another not because of skill or strategy or preparation or any of the other things that are observable and measurable. No, they won because they wanted it more! This is something David King would come up with when all else fails!
However, before you start throwing that remote control around your lounge room, the frustrating thing about this comment is that it kind of might be true? Motivation is a significant factor in football with 36 players on the field. It's a major factor in getting footballers to perform. "Wanting it more" does matter. As much as we hate hearing that from our commentary geniuses it's probably true. See Richmond v Swans game last week, they are not as good as Sydney, but the Tigers simply wanted it more!
The thing is as fans with the passionmetre on high in every game, we can only measure who wants it more indirectly by measuring who's playing well and winning, which means we should probably just talk about the teams that are playing well and winning in the first place. As fans, we didn't tune in to see who wants to win more. We're watching to see who's better at winning on any given day and hoping it's the team we support!
Still, we're all guilty of watching a contest and screaming in disgust as one of the players from the team you support gets beaten in a contest because the other bloke "wanted it more".
I was going to mention the "Role Player" which really means a mediocre player who will never be asked for an interview or his autograph, but i'll leave that one alone for the moment..
Last edited:
