{"id":517247,"date":"2026-03-04T03:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T03:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/517247\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T03:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T03:08:11","slug":"legendary-afl-commentator-dies-aged-76","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/517247\/","title":{"rendered":"Legendary AFL commentator dies aged 76"},"content":{"rendered":"

His commentary has become a soundtrack to many of the game\u2019s famous moments.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came up behind him like a librarian\u201d was how Cometti described Heath Shaw\u2019s chase and smother on an unsuspecting Nick Riewoldt, which denied the St Kilda forward a certain goal early in the 2010 grand final replay.<\/p>\n

\"Experienced:<\/p>\n

Experienced: Bruce McAvaney and Dennis Cometti have been calling AFL for many years.<\/p>\n

His exclamation of the \u201cthe Cat is still on the back\u201d to mark Geelong forward Tom Hawkins\u2019 after-the-siren goal to sink Hawthorn remains a fond memory for many Cats supporters after their team\u2019s ninth win in a row over their 2008 grand final conquerors.<\/p>\n

Earlier in that game, he quipped that Hawthorn\u2019s Matthew Suckling had \u201callowed two Geelong players to collide numerically\u201d, in a reference to Taylor Hunt and Steve Johnson, wearing numbers 19 and 20, to crash into each other after an ill-fated attempt to tackle.<\/p>\n

His description of the moment just before Tom Boyd\u2019s long bomb landed in the goal square captured the suspense at the MCG and in pubs and lounge rooms around the country in the Western Bulldogs\u2019 drought-breaking premiership in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow will it bounce? The stadium holds its breath. It\u2019s a goal. And the western suburbs erupt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Australian<\/p>\n

Australian Football Hall of Fame inductee Dennis Cometti accepts his certificate from league chairman Richard Goyder.Credit: AFL Photos<\/p>\n

That was his last game as a TV commentator, though he continued calling games in Western Australia for Triple M until the 2021 grand final in Perth.<\/p>\n

Cometti called 51 seasons of football across three networks, mainly with Seven and Nine but also for a year with the ABC when they had the rights to the then VFL in 1987.<\/p>\n

Though better known for his work in football, Cometti also commentated on cricket with the great Alan McGilvray on the ABC for 13 years, describing his first Test in 1973 aged 23 \u2013 the youngest in the public broadcaster\u2019s history. He was part of Seven\u2019s team for the 1997 series in South Africa.<\/p>\n

A talented footballer, Cometti played 40 games for West Perth in the WAFL and was on Footscray\u2019s list in 1971 but did not play a senior match. He coached West Perth for three seasons, from 1982-84 for finishes of third, sixth and sixth.<\/p>\n

With Andrew Wu<\/p>\n

More to come<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His commentary has become a soundtrack to many of the game\u2019s famous moments. \u201cHe came up behind him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-517247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}