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I’ve come to notice over the last year or so that many of the supposed best commentators in our game are, in my opinion, not doing their job. The main culprit I’m referring to is the Channel Nine rugby league commentary team.
The Nine team are supposedly the best analytical judges of the game and offer the average league fan extra insight to the game.
However, I often find myself muting the television to escape their painful mediocrity.
I have a particular issue with Ray Warren or ‘Rabs’. I understand that he is a great of the game and has given years of quality service to the TV audience, however some one really needs to give him a tap on the shoulder and let him know he should leave now instead of getting to the point where the names he calls out are more often wrong than right.
It’s become custom for a game with ‘Rabs’ to hear at least two or three names of players that either don’t exist or haven’t played the game in a considerable amount of time, such as Mark Horo (Rabs spent the entire game calling Justin Horo his Dad’s name).
However, the most ridiculous things I have noticed is that commentators such as the ‘Great Gus Gould’ (in his own mind) don’t seem to even bother to learn the players’ names nor what they look like.
One would think that this is a crucial factor to be able to commentate a game.
An example of this was when the Brisbane Broncos changed fullback after round five. Corey Norman was replaced by Josh Hoffman. Apparently no one told them that it was a different player despite the different name. To quote Gus, “I hear this kids an even better five-eighth” (that was Corey Norman).
This actually went on for a couple of rounds.
But the greatest issue I have with Channel 9 is its recruiting of Andrew Johns and Brad Fittler. One can only hope they are never allowed to commentate a whole game as they both fail to add anything interesting from their sideline quips. Sure they were both great players of the game, but their ability to articulate that to the masses in a coherent manner leaves a lot to be desired.
To highlight the ability of one Brad Fittler, one can YouTube to hear Fittler telling Rabs that he told the sick Cameron Ciraldo to “harden the ***k up!”
While that may be all good to say in a private conversation, when you’re being recorded on TV one has to know to choose their words better.
An example of a good sideline commentator I heard recently was Brett Kimmorely. In a sideline quip he actually added something of relevance to the game to give the viewer a better understanding of what was going on.
It is my belief Channel 9 needs to go away from recruiting the best retired players and instead recruit the best-articulated retired players.
An example of where they failed to do this was when they stuck by Andrew Johns and shafted his brother Matthew, while there is little doubt Andrew was the better player but Matthew was defiantly the better commentator.
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