In an industry of bombast and bluster, Dennis Cometti carved out a place in the pantheon of Australian sports callers with wit and wisdom.<\/p>\n
His commentary was the soundtrack to countless events in sporting history, with the final decades of his career spent mostly covering the AFL.<\/p>\n
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If there was an important AFL match being played throughout the 90s and 2000s, the chances are Cometti was behind the mic, making the seemingly mundane sound utterly magical.<\/p>\n
Until Cometti’s retirement in 2016, he was the only TV commentator whose career had spanned the entire duration of the AFL’s national competition, and his iconic one-liners will continue to live on for generations to come.<\/p>\n
Here are some of Cometti’s most memorable one-liners:<\/p>\n
On Eddie Betts threading the needle from the pocket:<\/p>\n
He’s judged it to a nicety. Centimetre perfect!<\/p>\n
On West Coast’s Peter Wilson kicking an overhead goal:<\/p>\n
Wilson, like a cork in the ocean over his head. Oh my word!<\/p>\n
On Heath Shaw’s goalsquare smother of Nick Riewoldt:<\/p>\n
He came up behind him like a librarian. He never heard him!<\/p>\n
On Steve Johnson’s dominant performance:<\/p>\n
This is a virtuoso performance. He will leave tonight and get on the team bus with a violin case.<\/p>\n
On Angus Monfries receiving a lucky bounce:<\/p>\n
If Pythagoras is watching, explain that!<\/p>\n
On Barack Obama’s tenpin bowling skills:<\/p>\n
I just hope the future of the free world is never decided by a bowl-off.<\/p>\n
On Cyril Rioli chasing Lewis Jetta on the wing:<\/p>\n
This is interesting! It’s a main event in any stadium in the world.<\/p>\n
On Kangaroos midfielder Jess Sinclair’s grievances:<\/p>\n
He’s pleading his case like the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.<\/p>\n
On Kamdyn McIntosh attempting to chase Bradley Hill:<\/p>\n
They say it’s easy to run downhill. Tell that to McIntosh!<\/p>\n
On Melbourne midfielder Adem Yze:<\/p>\n
Remember the name: Y-Z-E \u2014 terrific young player, bad Scrabble hand.<\/p>\n
On the work of Bulldogs star Tony Liberatore as he burrowed into a pack:<\/p>\n
Liberatore went into that last pack optimistically and came out misty optically.<\/p>\n
On former Melbourne, Sydney and Collingwood ruckman Darren Jolly:<\/p>\n
Jolly gets it to Green. Where’s the giant?<\/p>\n
On a Carlton champion:<\/p>\n
There’s Koutoufides \u2014 more vowels than possessions today.<\/p>\n
Closely assessing the team list in his Football Record:<\/p>\n
Barlow to Bateman \u2026 The Hawks are attacking alphabetically.<\/p>\n
On the cliches of sport:<\/p>\n
So it’s back to the old drawing board. Obviously a luxury that the guy who invented the drawing board didn’t have.<\/p>\n
On Brisbane midfielder Simon Black:<\/p>\n
He’s like Diogenes or OJ Simpson \u2014 he’s always searching.<\/p>\n
On an errant shot at goal by former Richmond star Darren Gasper:<\/p>\n
Ahh, Gasper the unfriendly post.<\/p>\n
Upon seeing Port Adelaide’s Josh Carr approached by a tackler:<\/p>\n
Carr \u2014 covered by a third party.<\/p>\n
On a collision between Carr’s brother Matthew and former Docker Trent Croad:<\/p>\n
Carr was just poleaxed by his own team-mate. Does that qualify as Croad rage?<\/p>\n
On the eternal struggles of the tall defender:<\/p>\n
Right now Shannon Watt looks like a man in a darkened room trying to discover where all the furniture is.<\/p>\n
On a West Coast Eagles champion:<\/p>\n
The way Jakovich is playing today, he’s closer to teething than retiring.<\/p>\n
On Collingwood’s burly full-forward of the 2000s:<\/p>\n
When Anthony Rocca backs into a pack, he beeps.<\/p>\n
Harking back to his FM radio days with another 1960s music reference:<\/p>\n
The Dockers’ defence is in disarray. Everybody wants to be Gladys Knight, nobody wants to be the Pips.<\/p>\n
On the unfortunate lot of a lumbering Adelaide ruckman:<\/p>\n
Shaun Rehn has been terrific again today but look at him, he’s paid a price. Like a Saint Bernard in a heatwave.<\/p>\n
On a Brownlow medal-winning former Bulldogs and Bears star:<\/p>\n
Hardie decides to have a bounce. Look at him go. Amazing. Not bad for a guy who’s built like a pirate’s lunch table.<\/p>\n
On St Kilda’s premiership drought:<\/p>\n
The Saints have had more five-year plans than Fidel Castro.<\/p>\n
On the one-dimensional kicking skills of Essendon forward Scott Lucas:<\/p>\n
I think it’s safe to say Lucas takes his right leg out there purely for balance.<\/p>\n
On his former colleague Robert DiPierdomenico:<\/p>\n
That’s the latest from the huddles. For those of you who don’t know, Dipper is a graduate of the Don Corleone school of elocution.<\/p>\n
On a former Adelaide and Geelong livewire’s unpredictable moves:<\/p>\n
I swear if Ronnie Burns were building a house he’d start with the roof.<\/p>\n
On football tactics:<\/p>\n
Some people might say that was a set play, but if it was, the Swans must have copied it off a Portuguese bus timetable.<\/p>\n
On Simon Black, again:<\/p>\n
A lot of talk these days is about ‘inside players’. Well, as we saw there, if Simon Black was any more inside he’d be a pancreas.<\/p>\n
On a clash between Essendon and Hawthorn great Paul Salmon and the more slimline St Kilda star Nicky ‘Elvis’ Winmar:<\/p>\n
Just as Winmar landed, big Salmon came crashing down on top of him. They’re slowly getting up and now I can report the building has left the Elvis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an industry of bombast and bluster, Dennis Cometti carved out a place in the pantheon of Australian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,258512,8612,53582,258511,258513,5483,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-517499","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-best-one-liners","14":"tag-commentary","15":"tag-commentator","16":"tag-dennis-cometti","17":"tag-dennis-cometti-quotes","18":"tag-quotes","19":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517499","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=517499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}