Review Hawks v Dogs Practice Match, Wednesday 24th Feb 10.30am

Roddy

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Are people seriously going this hard at bagging amateur commentators on what was a pretty great quality livestream of an unofficial pre-season scratch match?

The level of coverage for the games yesterday was amazing. Go back a couple years and we'd be lucky to get a half decent highlights package a few days afterwards.

If you had to pay for this stream (which you didn't, even with your membership) then sure, but this was an awesome freebie. And if you hated the commentators that much you could have just muted it. It's not like you were going to miss out on crowd noise.
It's the same old thing. People love to whine, some people don't feel good about themselves if they're not whinging about something or hating on something. It's in their very nature. What boring and entitled lives they must lead.
 
Oct 2, 2014
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Anyone know how Callow, Bravo and Bramble went in the 2's game?
How did Finn, Morris, reeves, (others?) go in the 2nds match? Only seen snippets in the previous comments.

Callow was quiet but looked our most dangerous tall. Worked hard for minimal reward, kicked 1 goal.
Bramble a livewire with speed and evasion. Impressed.
No clue on Bravo.
Finn decent when playing inside but wish he stamped his authority more. Missing when outside.
Reeves great both rucking and around the ground. Ahead of Brooksby.
Morris had some good moments but goes missing for long periods.
Jeka and Nash non-factors although some good leads were let down by shocking delivery. Both kicked junktime goals.
DGB played a half and positioned well on Jamarra.
Hartley is solid depth.
 

Pessimistic

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Callow was quiet but looked our most dangerous tall. Worked hard for minimal reward, kicked 1 goal.
Bramble a livewire with speed and evasion. Impressed.
No clue on Bravo.
Finn decent when playing inside but wish he stamped his authority more. Missing when outside.
Reeves great both rucking and around the ground. Ahead of Brooksby.
Morris had some good moments but goes missing for long periods.
Jeka and Nash non-factors although some good leads were let down by shocking delivery. Both kicked junktime goals.
DGB played a half and positioned well on Jamarra.
Hartley is solid depth.

Reeves is the size of Mason Cox but looks nowhere near as ungainly. Incidentally doesnt have a wikipedia page yet
 

illnino

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Did you like her "Ollie Hanarahan is a tall marking forward" or "kicked into the man on the mark", when it was a simple in play kick that was smothered, or every other thing she said because frankly she didn't say anything correct. Neither did her colleague, it was like they had never seen a game before and just wrote down things commentators said and read them out.
I soooo want to see you have a crack at commentating a scratch match now haha 😜

Was a good effort by 3 people who didn't have to bother.
 
I soooo want to see you have a crack at commentating a scratch match now haha 😜

Was a good effort by 3 people who didn't have to bother.
Thanks, I was looking for things I don't give a crap about, and what you soooo want was one I hadn't found yet.
 

offtherails9

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Lol apologies for starting the commentary chatter.. it wasn't great but the blokes who are saying it's tough etc etc are right. I just found a few of the things she said a little embarrassing and thought it needed to be brought up.

Anyway more important stuff to talk about.
 

Mojo

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Are people seriously going this hard at bagging amateur commentators on what was a pretty great quality livestream of an unofficial pre-season scratch match?

The level of coverage for the games yesterday was amazing. Go back a couple years and we'd be lucky to get a half decent highlights package a few days afterwards.

If you had to pay for this stream (which you didn't, even with your membership) then sure, but this was an awesome freebie. And if you hated the commentators that much you could have just muted it. It's not like you were going to miss out on crowd noise.

The female commentator was painful, my guy. PAINFUL.
 
Oct 2, 2014
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Reeves still has a ways to go; long ways. Still ball-watches & non-aggressive. He's tracking about the speed of most big men that go on to have average careers - let's hope his ceiling is higher.

Yeah he still has areas he needs to work on but I'm optimistic given the sheer amount he's improved. Reeves last year vs this year is like watching a completely different player. Hopefully he keeps that trajectory.
 
I don't know if mentioning the fact that the female commentator struggled with some of the basics of the English language means they weren't grateful for the coverage.

It's...like...something that gets mentioned....like the wind direction, or any number of other of the thousands of things that get mentioned.
 
I don't know if mentioning the fact that the female commentator struggled with some of the basics of the English language means they weren't grateful for the coverage.

It's...like...something that gets mentioned....like the wind direction, or any number of other of the thousands of things that get mentioned.
People can certainly be grateful for the stream and make their observations on the commentary. I'm sure there is some constructive feedback in there. I just felt like some were being unnecessarily critical of clear amateurs working on their craft.

They'd obviously been given the opportunity to practice their call on an AFL level game because these particular scratch matches were never going to have professionally experienced and paid AFL commentary teams calling them.

It was never amateurs OR professionals. It was amateurs OR silence. And if silence would have paired better with the free HD live stream we didn't know we were getting until relatively recently then people could have just hit mute and then we could have spent more time discussing how Brockman glides across the grass with the cat-like agility of a 2015 Norm Smith medalist.
 

PT Bar None

Banal Chaos
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A 23 year old lass who was maybe having her first crack at it? She threw herself on the play by play grenade most of the match too. Made some blunders for sure - but was far less biased than the non Ash Browne bloke. Something about the aussie accent needs to be tempered when commentating to de-grate it. Would love if we could generate a Doris Burke down here. Still - preferred her to Wayne Carey or the usual mid-tier plodders who talk about something that happened whilst they were playing and completely ignore Breust wrong footing two pursuers before kicking an inside out goal.

The team sheet they got for the two's was inaccurate as well, with players missing, etc.

Was a real good practice match for the Hawks if the commentary is our biggest gripe ;)

ETA: I reckon the modern game can be almost uncommentable at times. A bunch of guys in succession tackle, throw, gather, tackle, throw, etc. How do you commentate that? You've basically got to wait for a clearance or free to commit to naming players it's all so fast
 

LMGjr

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People can certainly be grateful for the stream and make their observations on the commentary. I'm sure there is some constructive feedback in there. I just felt like some were being unnecessarily critical of clear amateurs working on their craft.

They'd obviously been given the opportunity to practice their call on an AFL level game because these particular scratch matches were never going to have professionally experienced and paid AFL commentary teams calling them.

It was never amateurs OR professionals. It was amateurs OR silence. And if silence would have paired better with the free HD live stream we didn't know we were getting until relatively recently then people could have just hit mute and then we could have spent more time discussing how Brockman glides across the grass with the cat-like agility of a 2015 Norm Smith medalist.
Mate get out of your grandstand hey.
 
Play by play commentary is almost impossible when you can't pick up who the players are. It's easier for top commentators (well, not BT) to disguise the fact that they don't know who a player is because it's usually only 1 or 2 players per team.

In those circumstances, the trick is to shift the conversation to special comments - to wax lyrical about a player you do know, or to do the 'we've got a game on our hands, hey?' sort of additions that Bruce peppers in, or to skip over the player name and describe the action 'that kick was centimetre perfect into the forward line'.

But if you've been asked to do play-by-play commentary and you don't know the majority of players well enough to pick them up, then the chances are that you can't fill 2 hours by talking about the players you do know because you won't have enough content.

It was probably more obvious to Hawks fans because both commentators clearly knew the Dogs players better.

I felt for the female commentator - it seemed pretty clear to me that she recognised the mistakes she made, and was kicking herself, and that compounded the errors going forward. When you're nervous and make mistakes, you overthink it going forward, and it causes more. Commentary is a skill, and you only get better with practice - so I hope it was a valuable experience and they get more opportunities in the future.
 

On Topic

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I think there are many positives from this game. It was a practice match so I'll temper expectations a bit.

I liked the team selection and which players were playing what positions. Last year I felt that we were forcing players to play a specific role as opposed to what came more naturally to them. This time around, we got to see players in their best positions which was good to see.

Considering that we have Burgyone, Shiels, Sicily*, Gunston, Scrimshaw and Mitchell to come into the side, it will only be a positive.

I was skeptical earlier in the year but I think we might have something with Koschitzke up forward. Looks quite imposing. Him and Lewis taking contested marks has me pretty excited!

Downie has started the year off very nicely. Brockman is still a bit green but he has "it". I cannot understate the importance of Maginness, Reeves, Greaves and Grainger-Barras improving. There are important spots in the side up for the taking, I'm hoping these guys will fill them sooner rather than later.
 
A 23 year old lass who was maybe having her first crack at it? She threw herself on the play by play grenade most of the match too. Made some blunders for sure - but was far less biased than the non Ash Browne bloke. Something about the aussie accent needs to be tempered when commentating to de-grate it. Would love if we could generate a Doris Burke down here. Still - preferred her to Wayne Carey or the usual mid-tier plodders who talk about something that happened whilst they were playing and completely ignore Breust wrong footing two pursuers before kicking an inside out goal.

The team sheet they got for the two's was inaccurate as well, with players missing, etc.

Was a real good practice match for the Hawks if the commentary is our biggest gripe ;)

ETA: I reckon the modern game can be almost uncommentable at times. A bunch of guys in succession tackle, throw, gather, tackle, throw, etc. How do you commentate that? You've basically got to wait for a clearance or free to commit to naming players it's all so fast

Yeah the modern game is genuinely difficult to comment on given the scrappiness and lack of clear possession in large chunks.

One thing I will say, Channel 7 needs to pivot towards Jason Bennett as one of their main commentators. His coverage of the AFL games he's been given and most of the televised VFL games has been very good for a long time.
 
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