Crappy commentary, Clubs agree.

[ScottH]

A fair call? No way, say clubs' chief executives

The Swans football department believe the club's style of play is too often castigated by Malcolm Blight and Tim Lane.

The club believes the pair would have prompted unconverted armchair fans to turn off the opening of the recent round-16 Sydney-Richmond game.

Sydney's tactics and style had been criticised from the opening minutes.

Blight was one commentator singled out for not always having done his pre-game homework.

Mr Schwab singled out Fox Football's Sunday commentary team of Clinton Grybus, Gerard Healy and Wayne Carey as "brilliant".

[Tuco]

Was it just my lack of comprehension skills, or was there in fact not a single quote from someone related to the Swans in that article.?

Just assertions that we're whingers. Oh Well.

I'll say this, however. We kicked 180pts against Richmond earlier this year and Tim Lane still called us "dour". So even when we fire on all throttles the story becomes "oh well Sydney usually are boring".

Personally I'd given up on a lot of the commentators years ago.

[barry]

This was discussed on bigfooty a while back. Sydney ratings would take a big upturn if we had Sydney based commentators with a Sydney bias.

SA and WA have bias commentators, why not us.

Its true that Lane in particular is a depressing person to listen to.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by Tuco
I'll say this, however. We kicked 180pts against Richmond earlier this year and Tim Lane still called us "dour". So even when we fire on all throttles the story becomes "oh well Sydney usually are boring".

It's hardly surprising though that neutral supporters find watching the Swans rather boring much of the time.

We have a stack more stoppages than any other side. Watch scrums and ball ups isn't particularly interesting.

We also tend to kick less goals than other top teams, and kicking goals is really one of the key parts of the game.

Generally speaking top teams kick over 108 points (18 goals equivalent) 45-50% of the time, whereas the Swans do it only about 25%. Top teams kick over 100 points 55-65% of the time, whereas the Swans do it only 35-45%.

[Young Blood]

Funny how people see things differently. Lane is my favourite commentator, and Blight my favourite comments man.

[Rizzo]

I've been turning off the sound and tuning in to MMM for the live interstate games. Certainly a Sydney bias there...but also fairly critical of Swans players from time to time.

[Tuco]

Without a doubt the funniest effort by a commentary team ever had to be this performance by the Ch 10 crew in the Bris vs Swans game at the Gabba in 2005.

For those who don't remember it, it was a grind early then we broke the game open and kicked 11 goals in the second half for a memorable last kick of the day win.

I've taken these quotes from an email I sent to my mates on the topic at the time. Though if anyone has a copy of the game I'm sure they'll remember some of these.

Steve Quartermaine (1st half): Anything happenning would be good.
S.Q (2nd half): Can't complain about the action, it's been fantastic.
S.Q. (2nd half): It was a magnificent game.

Tim Lane (1st half): Surely the Swans can't believe in their method.
Tim Lane (2nd half): Actually it's been a fantastic match, fantastic.

Blight (1st half approx 5mins in) Why wouldn't you want to kick goals...I mean...well, the
coach is well within his rights...you can't blame Roos, but why wouldn't you
want...i don't know....

Blight (2nd half) Well, good on Paul Roos....it's been good footy.

Tim Lane: Walls must feel like Archimedes when he saw someone taking a
bath...um..when the water went over their chest.

(huh?)

Blight : It's a funny one. How do you rate a player like Mal
Michael..if...at the end...he's had three touches. I mean...(pause)...*sigh*..I'm sorry.

(err...okay, Blighty. Have a sit down, maybe?)

Christie Malthouse (start of 4th qtr): Sydney look to be totally spent after
that 3rd qtr.

(We went on to steamroll the Lions with a 7 goal qtr)

Blight (early in 4th): There's a lotta positives in the 2nd half for Roos.
He could take the video and say..look..if we'd done this here instead of
that,then maybe this might've happened...then you could say we coulda got
the ball forward and once you done that it would've been forward.

( Okay Blighty.Whatever you say)

Blight (5mins on clock in 4th): I've just gotta feeling this game hasn't
finished yet.

Blight: They must've just got mixed up in the...err...mix up.

(um....ooookay)

Blight: You've got to kick goals to win this game, and as long as they give
6 points for a goal...um...then you'll be safe.

(any suggestions to what he's on about here please forward them to Tucoisconfused.com

Okay I take it back. The Ch 10 commentary team is actually quite entertaining in their own way.

[Missy]

Thats gold!

[NMWBloods]

I remember that game and its commentary well. The commentators were bamboozled by the Swans' approach in the first half. Literally from the opening minute we had a massive flood going - we had our entire team in the back half. Blight couldn't understand why you wouldn't try to run a normal game and get the ball forward and try to kick some goals. In the second half we played like that and we kicked goals. He was confused as to why we waited until the second half to do that. Given we had kicked 2.4 to half time, criticism of the way we were playing was hardly out of line.

[Tuco]

doesn't make it any less funny from where I'm sitting

[NMWBloods]

Blight often makes me cringe. But he also has a lot of good insights into the game.

I like Quarters.

I like Lane, but only when he's not commentating the Swans. He really doesn't like us - seems standard for Blues supporters.

[Sanecow]

I think it was Blight who said in our game v Fremantle "You have to hope that Fremantle win, for their sake". WTF?!

[possumfeatures]

I've become immune to the innane comments about the Swans style. I think that mostly it is just sheer laziness that none of the commentators actually bother to assess how the Swans play for themselves and just take the standard line. The thing that really gets up my goat is when they are just plain wrong and even worse when the co-commentators don't correct them.

Most recent source of annoyance - saturday night KB continually banging on about Malceski doing his hammy against the Demons earlier in the year!! I know I am exagerating but it felt like he said it 5 times (or at least every time Mal got a touch). Just plain wrong!! And Gerard Healy just lets him keep saying it. They get paid to do a job the least they can do is get it right.

[Thunder Shaker]

Originally posted by Tuco
Blight (5mins on clock in 4th): I've just gotta feeling this game hasn't
finished yet.

This has to win the Sybil Fawlty award for stating the bleeding obvious. What next?

It's raining so the ground's going to get wet

When they kick the ball at the goals there's a chance they might register a score

If the ball is thrown in the air by the umpire, it's got to come down again

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by Thunder Shaker
This has to win the Sybil Fawlty award for stating the bleeding obvious. What next?

Five minutes to go and 100 points down you're not likely to state "I've just gotta feeling this game hasn't finished yet". I thought we were still a few goals down at that stage.