Legendary AFL commentator Dennis Cometti has passed away at the age of 76. Photo: AFL MEDIA

It’s inevitably the witticisms which first spring first to mind when you hear the name Dennis Cometti, so clever was the punning ability of the legendary football commentator, who died on Wednesday, aged 76.

As they should. Cometti had a quick mind and penchant for metaphor and wordplay which so often came up with the perfect descriptor for the big moments.

You’re probably rattling a few off in your head as you read this. You know, like Peter Wilson being a “cork in the ocean” when he bobbed up off the deck to kick a crucial goal for West Coast in the 1992 grand final.

Or the famous moment, since appropriated for a TV commercial, when Collingwood’s Heath Shaw mowed down St Kilda’s Nick Riewoldt in the goal square as the Saint strolled into an open goal in the 2010 grand final replay. “He came up behind him like a librarian, he never heard him,” said Cometti, finding the perfect imagery.

There was the line about Bulldog Brownlow medallist Tony Liberatore, who Cometti said “went into that last pack optimistically and came out misty optically”. Or the quip about then-young Demon midfielder Adem Yze. “Remember the name: Y-Z-E – terrific young player, bad Scrabble hand.”

When Cometti was inducted into the Australian football Hall of Fame in 2020, he recalled that his personal favourite had referenced his love of music (he’d been a radio DJ in his native Perth) and a famous Rolling Stones song.

“Andrew McLeod was involved in a skirmish, and the umpires had come in to say to the players to break it up, which allowed me to go with: ‘Hey, you, get off McLeod’. I thought at the time, ‘how good is that’?

Very. Cometti’s only regret was that none of his less musically-savvy co-callers actually got the joke. But then few of them could match Cometti’s other strong suits behind the microphone, either, which were regularly on display not just in AFL coverage, but calling famous Olympic moments, and for a long time calling cricket.

They were traits recognised by a long catalogue of honours. He was awarded an Order of Australia. He was in so many Halls of Fame it was easy to lose count, those of Sport Australia, the MCG and Australian Football Media Association.

So what made Cometti so special? It really wasn’t just the puns, far from it.

There was the smooth as silk deep voice. In an era when most commentary voices were still nails-down-a-blackboard stuff, Cometti’s resonant tones would have sounded equally perfect for back-announcing a Fleetwood Mac “triple play” on an FM “soft rock” station.

But there was also the sharpness of his analysis, coming from a playing career of some 40-odd games with West Perth in the WAFL, then coaching the club for three seasons from 1982-84.

PLEASE HELP US CONTINUE TO THRIVE BY BECOMING AN OFFICIAL FOOTYOLOGY PATRON. JUST CLICK THIS LINK.

It meant he held appeal for several different (and perhaps sometimes not naturally complementary) audience segments; those who valued words and quality of their delivery, those who liked incisive and technically adept summary of the action going on, and those who loved banter.

Which gave him arguably unique status. In a job which polarises opinions about various commentators’ worth, Cometti was almost universally highly-regarded.

Sports journalist Shannon Gill about 15 years ago wrote a compelling case which I have always remembered about why he regarded Dennis Cometti’s call of the famous 1989 grand final classic between Hawthorn and Geelong as arguably the greatest football call of them all.

In many observers’ opinion the greatest grand final, the Hawks’ famous six-point win was a non-stop rollercoaster, high-scoring, tough, at times violent, stacked with heroic individual efforts and memorable moments like Dermott Brereton’s poleaxing at the opening bounce, and Gary Ablett senior’s Norm Smith Medal-winning nine-goal haul.

So much was going on it was hard to keep track. And you can’t help but feel that in today’s super-hyped climate, the same game called by many of our current best-known commentators would simply be a cacophony of screaming and exclamation.

But Cometti, partnered that day with Ian Robertson and special comments man Don Scott in the Channel 7 box, brought it all together seamlessly, always in control, always letting the words help facilitate the action, not overwhelm it with unnecessary bluster.

As Geelong came from the clouds against the injury-stricken Hawks with Ablett rising to new heights, Cometti coolly conducted the narrative backdrop. When the superstar marked one-handed and goalled to keep the Cats alive late in the game, Cometti sensed one of the great stories playing out.

“Cleared by Hawthorn to Geelong in 1983, will he come back to haunt them? Checkside kick … nonchalant!” As the Cats desperately made up the leeway and the crowd noise became one prolonged guttural roar, Cometti stayed in control. As the Cats blindly bombed the ball forward, the master caller summed it up: “Why not, the miracle worker is down there”.

And as Hawthorn survived one last centre bounce and the countdown time clock ticked down to zero, he didn’t need to roll out one of those obviously-rehearsed “big” lines to mark the moment, impossible in this frantic finish.

“There’s the siren! Hawthorn have won it by six points in a heartstopper. Ladies and gentlemen, you have just seen a classic.”

We did. And it’s one which, thanks in part to one of sport’s greatest commentators, is appropriately commemorated. Really, a caller can leave no greater legacy. And that is Cometti’s, every bit as much as the quips which came to define him.

This article first appeared at ESPN.