The Godfather: Peter Corris on AFL speak
The wittiest piece of innuendo I know from a sports commentator belongs to the legendary English cricket pundit John Arlott. When summarising the action in a county game, Arlott went through the list of bowlers and came to Cunis, an indifferent medium-pace man.
‘As for the bowling of Cunis,’ Arlott intoned, ‘well, it was neither one thing nor another.’
The remark closest to this quality I am aware of from an AFL commentator is Dennis Cometti’s comment about a player’s kick for goal, which veered away at the end. Cometti said, ‘It was a Rock Hudson kind of kick – looked straight but wasn’t.’
AFL commentators and officials have a vocabulary, grammar and terminology all their own and anyone coming new to the game would be well advised to learn something of the usage. Here are a few examples with explanations:
He’s a big unit – applied to players of 195 centimetres in height or over;
He can weave some magic – applies to Indigenous players only – meant as a tribute to their eyesight, speed, evasive abilities, etc;
He has silky skills – ditto;
It went gun-barrel straight – a coinage by Dennis Cometti to describe a remarkably straight kick. When used by other commentators Cometti is always acknowledged;
It’s centimetre perfect – ditto;
‘The arm of A came into contact with the head of B’ – this construction, rather than the simpler ‘A’s arm came into contact with B’s head’ is often adopted by commentators, who seem to feel it adds gravitas to their description;
They’re icing the clock – this describes the practice of a team leading by a slender margin in the closing seconds of the game doing all it can to deny possession of the ball to the other team (often by kicking away from its own goal) to let the time remaining expire, frustrating the opposition and the opposition’s barrackers;
He sold the dummy – when a player has deceived his opponent by feigning a handball in one direction only to either keep possession and run or pass in another direction;
He took the risk of going into the corridor – this describes a kick or a handpass from near the boundary of the field into the middle. This is a risky manoeuvre unless it comes off perfectly, because if it fails, the opposition has a chance to take the straightest line to goal;
He put his body on the line – this describes the action of a player’s determination to get the ball whatever opposition (especially that of bigger players) may be mustered against him;
‘Not fifteen’ – this is called by an umpire who has determined that a kick has not travelled the requisite 15 metres for it to be legitimately marked and held by another player. An umpire may also call ‘Touched’, which has the same effect when a kick is touched in flight;
Pagan’s paddock – This term was once widely heard but is now only occasionally referred to. Denis Pagan, when coach of the North Melbourne club, had drilled his players to allow a space to open up around their star centre-half-forward Wayne ‘the Duck’ Carey, who could be relied on to beat an opponent to the ball and kick for goal;
He has a serious hoof on him – This is perhaps just comprehensible to followers of soccer and rugby but totally baffling to non-Australian speakers. It means simply ‘can kick the ball a very long way’, which is a feature of Australian football and, among other things, makes it visually far more attractive than other football codes.
