‘Barely respected’: Kane Cornes backlash turns prickly
Kane Cornes has been roasted by a high profile colleague over comments that have left NRL commentators in disbelief.
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NRL commentator Andrew Voss has added his voice to the wave of anger being sent at Kane Cornes after the AFL commentators’ swipe at the rival football code.
The former Port Adelaide star on Monday called rugby league a “shocking sport” while calling Sunday night’s grand final a “disaster”.
His comments were immediately met with a barrage of criticism — and the condemnation is now stretching into a second day.
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Voss’ swipe at Cornes is particularly notable because they are both employees of the SEN radio network.
It comes as leading NRL journalist Andrew Webster and former Panthers star Josh Mansour also hit out at the Sunday Footy Show co-host.
After hearing Cornes’ now infamous comments on AFL Trade Radio, the Fox League commentator took a swipe at the footy shock jock and AFL Trade Radio host Sam Edmund.
“You’re cracking jokes,” Voss said on SEN 1170 Breakfast.
“I know people eat the wrong sort of mushrooms down there from time to time but you’ve had a bag full, you have deadset either ingested, inhaled or eaten bad mushrooms.
“Because you’re a good broadcaster, Sam’s good and Kane’s good but they’re on something.
“I can’t sit through a game of AFL full stop but that doesn’t mean I say it’s a bad sport.
“I thank God or whoever God is, every day that I was born a rugby league man and I say that hand on heart, I’m so glad I was born a rugby league man rather than AFL.”
Mansour also responded to a video of Cornes’ comments posted by AFL Trade Radio on Twitter, posting: “How can you compare and criticise when the AFL GF was decided in 40mins”.
Webster described Cornes as a “blowhard barely respected in his own code” in the SMH.
“I must’ve been watching a different AFL grand final last week because the one on my TV involving the Sydney Swans was done and dusted against Brisbane well before halftime,” Webster wrote.
“Something similar happened when GWS Giants played Richmond in 2019. I attended that one and found myself necking Bloody Marys with then Victorian Premier Dan Andrews at the bar well before the long break.”
Cornes earlier hit a sore spot with his comments on AFL Trade Radio.
“That was a disaster. It’s just a shocking sport,” Cornes said.
“I’ve said this for a while now. I really admire the physicality of the players and how tough they are. All of that But tell me if there was one highlight? One single highlight in a whole game of NRL. There’s not even a full stadium there. It’s so repetitive.”
He went on to say he only watched the second half after filming Channel 9’s Footy Furnace.
“It would have rated its socks off so don’t get me wrong,” he said.
“After the Furnace, I was watching the second half, but not one highlight in the game of games for the whole season.”
It comes after Bulldogs cult hero Willie Mason last week bashed the AFL grand final as a “boring” spectacle.
The Lions blew the Swans away in last week’s decider at the MCG in a contest that was over before the half time siren.
Mason said he wanted to leave the stadium after the first 25 minutes, saying the day as a whole left him “bored s***less”.
“It was probably the worst major event I’ve ever been to,” Mason said on the Levels Network podcast with former Eels star Justin Horo.
“It was just boring. There were 100,000 people there and 25 minutes in I’m thinking this is boring.
“Maybe it was what the Swans dished up. Very underwhelming. If I speak to most people that were down there it was very underwhelming. If I was going off just as an event. Terrible.”
The footy world now has to wait until March until the next code war erupts.
Originally published as ‘Barely respected’: Kane Cornes backlash turns prickly
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