Source :- THE AGE NEWS
Oh, no!
Dennis Cometti. Dead? Not Dennis!
And so young, too. Just 76 years old. The bloke was so loved, so full of life. Has there been a more widely loved sports commentator in the history of our country?
I suspect not. For while the likes of Richie Benaud, Ray Warren, Frank Hyde, Ron Casey, Rex Mossop, Norman May and Gordon Bray all had their devotees, the thing about Cometti was that his devotees, and in his case, disciples, extended way beyond the sport that he was principally associated with, Aussie Rules.
I knew nothing about him until the late 90s, when my on-air partner at 2SM then 2WS, Doug Mulray, would come into the studio on a Monday chortling about something he’d heard someone called – and Doug would imitate his voice – Dennis Comettiiiii, say on the weekend.
Sorry, what?
Alastair Clarkson of the Hawks is interviewed by Dennis Cometti in 2014. Credit: Getty Images
Doug Mulray, who was a rugby league man to the core, and who was a famous wit in his own right, was raving about how clever an Aussie Rules bloke was?
I started watching Aussie Rules myself to see what all the fuss was about, was not disappointed, and ended up spruiking his charms so often in these pages, that in 2007 the great man asked me to write the foreword to his book, That’s Ambitious, a collection of his genius bits of commentary.
“The Dockers defence is in disarray. Everybody wants to be Gladys Knight, nobody wants to be the Pips.”
That’s Ambitious: Dennis Cometti’s 2007 book.
“The Kangaroos are on the attack but big Sav couldn’t turn. He looked like Pavarotti on a skateboard.”
“When the Saints kicked that goal I was watching those Bulldog defenders and they just fanned out like a group of crazed Amway salesmen.”
“Look at Long. That’s a sweat! Like Marlon Brando eating Thai food!”
“There’s Koutoufides. More vowels than possessions today.”
See, the thing about Dennis was, you didn’t need to either know anything about the game he was calling, or care about the result, to delight in his droll witticisms.
With ridiculous ease, they would simply roll off his tongue, and he – instead of falling about laughing the way we were – would just continue, completely deadpan. Go on, Dennis, give us a few more bursts, for the road.
When Richmond’s gritty midfielder Shane Tuck made a mistake and exploded with angry words, Cometti was quick off the mark: “I wonder what the team psychologist will make of that. Tuck dropped that mark and immediately shouted out his own surname.”
When they played, ad nauseam, footage of a player involved in a terrible but courageous collision, Cometti opined: “Just wonderful courage from Paul Hasleby. He bounced off one guy and into the path of another. If you watch that replay backwards I bet it says ‘Paul is dead’.”
As Essendon’s Andrew Lovett ran into an open goal against Geelong, he booted the ball hard and low into the Geelong cheer squad, before trying to appease the subsequently angry mob: “Well, Lovett was apologising. He didn’t intend for the shot to hit the fan!”
As two blond St Kilda players mounted a raid: “Riewoldt to Jones … the blond leading the blond.”
‘Look at Long. That’s a sweat! Like Marlon Brando eating Thai food!’
Dennis Cometti
During a Carlton-Collingwood game, as Blues midfielder Mitch Robinson took a great mark: “And here’s to you, Mitchell Robinson.”
When the cameras showed a shellshocked Bulldogs president David Smorgon, as Collingwood beat his side by a single lousy point: “Dare I say it, but he looks like a Stunned Dog Millionaire.”
During the Carlton-Geelong match, as Brendan Fevola was looking for someone to pass to: “I don’t trust those eyes, looks like he’s trying to sell Persian rugs out of the back seat of his car.”
I was watching when Cometti recounted on air his first meeting with Channel Nine’s Eddie McGuire in his office. “Ed had an aura. I remember he asked his personal assistant, ‘Have you seen the letter-opener?’ and she replied, ‘It’s his day off’. I was impressed.”
As we all were, with Cometti.
And yes, I know. Some of those lines, instead of being spontaneous genius, were spears he must have previously sharpened, and had in his quiver ready to launch at just the right moment. I put as much in my foreword, and Dennis happily acknowledged that to be the case.
Others though, were purely spontaneous
“Scotty Cummings alone in the square, jumping up and down and waving his arms like they’re playing My Sharona.”
“The goal square’s full of Bears, looks like we’ve got ourselves a convoy.”
“If it was a set play, they copied it from a Portuguese bus timetable.”
Dermott Brereton: “Why do you suppose he went side on to take the mark?”
Dennis: “He probably was trying to impress the Russian judge.”
“Adam Yze, a terrific player . . . terrible scrabble hand.”
“Libba went into the pack optimistically and came out misty, optically.”
“Barlow to Bateman . . . the Hawks are attacking alphabetically.”
“He’s made a typo! He wanted Bickley and he’s got Buckley!”
But to the best of the lot? This is the one I would happily chisel on his tombstone, beneath the line:
Here lies Dennis Cometti. He was loved from Darwin to the Derwent, from Penrith to Perth. And he made the Australian people laugh.
This exchange occurred, word for word, during a match between Melbourne and Collingwood in 2007:
Co-commentator Gerard Healy: “Word is this guy is the most reliable kick for goal in the side. They say down at Collingwood if you had to have someone kicking for your life, Tarkyn Lockyer would be the man…”
Cometti: “I’d prefer my mum.”
Healy: (Shocked silence).
Cometti: “Not a great footballer, but at least she’d care.”
Vale, Dennis. You, and you alone – far more than any mere player – took the game of Aussie Rules so much wider than its original footprint.
