AFL Podcast Roundup Round 14: Who is the AFL’s most annoying media personality
What’s worse than getting sledged? Copping the same sledge over and over, “pretty much every day”. A premiership star explains.
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From the most annoying personality in footy through to the sliding doors moment that could’ve cost a Hawks star a fifth flag, here are the moments that made waves and the bits you missed in the lead-up to Round 14.
WHY GRAND FINAL HERO GETS RIBBED EVERY DAY
Dom Sheed wrote himself into footy folklore when he kicked the winning goal in last year’s Grand Final.
Since then, he’s has followed up with his best season to date, averaging career highs in disposals (27, up from 22) and clearances (5.8, up from 4.3), as well as inside 50s and rebound 50s.
But it seems all that isn’t enough to satisfy one pesky mate, who continues to remind Sheed that West Coast would be better off without him.
That is, the Eagles would be better off had they selected Patrick Cripps with pick 11 in the 2013 national draft instead of Sheed. (Cripps was selected by Carlton two picks later.)
“I’m sure West Coast are flat about that,” Sheed told the BACKchat podcast this week.
“You could’ve had Patrick Cripps over me. I get told that every day — pretty much every day.
“My mate messages me Patrick Cripps’s stats.”
As good as Sheed’s career has been, he knows he has limited opportunities to return serve.
“I did send the last two minutes of the granny once. But other than that I’ve got nothing to fire back with, so that’s why he keeps going at me.
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FOOTY’S MOST ANNOYING PERSONALITY REVEALED
AFL commentators, journos and reporters have a knack for rubbing people the wrong way. But who is the most irritating of the lot?
Damian Barrett and Craig Hutchison threw the question out to listeners of their podcast The Sounding Board via a survey, and more than 1000 footy fans delivered their verdict.
“The winner … well, winner’s not really the right term. The most annoying man in football media is Basil Zempilas,” Hutchison said on The Sounding Board this week.
Zempilas topped the list with 18.6 per cent of votes, followed by Cameron Ling (16.3 per cent), Kane Cornes (15.9 per cent) and Tom Browne (13 per cent).
Hutchison said he was disappointed to see Zempilas on top of the list — and Barrett suggested even some on the list might be unhappy with the results.
“I think Kane Cornes would’ve liked to have been number one on this, wouldn’t he,” Barrett said.
Hutchison was rated the least annoying of the 10 personalities selected — with Brian Taylor, Eddie McGuire, Dermott Brereton, Dwayne Russell and Bruce McAvaney all being voted more annoying (in that order).
But perhaps it wasn’t a fair fight.
“We’ve got to call this — this has been surveyed into our listenership, so it’s disproportionate. If you’re already listening to the show, chances are you don’t find us hugely annoying,” Hutchison said.
Asked whether the results might be different if the Herald Sun were to pose the same question, Hutchison said the results would be “much, much, much, much worse — a top three finish, for sure.”
THE SLIDING DOORS MOMENT THAT COULD’VE COST HAWK A FIFTH FLAG
‘Five-time premiership player Jarryd Roughead’ has a nice ring to it.
The former Hawthorn skipper says he believes the Hawks would’ve won yet another flag if one ‘sliding doors’ moment had’ve unfolded differently.
“I reckon we would’ve won ’16 too if I played,” Roughead told the Jock and Journo podcast this week.
Roughead spent the entire season on the sidelines having cancer treatment. But he believes if he’d had the chance to play in the Hawks’ qualifying final, the result could’ve been different.
“You’ve got to remember Smith misses that goal against Geelong (after the siren). If I play, I reckon we can win that — and we’re in a prelim and play the Swans at the G.”
Roughead also opened up about his health issues, admitting he “probably wasn’t fully right until the end of maybe 2017”, even though he played 22 games that season.
“I had issues with my feet and stuff like that. One of the side effects was the nerves in my feet were getting eaten away. It felt like I had really bad pins and needles or frostbite in my feet.”
Needless to say, it made it tough to kick a footy.
“They’re the tools for work … so I kinda need them to be right,” Roughead said.
“I had to see neurologists and stuff like this but I’m 100 per cent fine now. The feet are all good now.”
BETTS: ‘I THOUGHT THE GAME WAS GETTING PAST ME’
Eddie Betts has been giving small defenders nightmares for more than a decade.
But the 300-game champion — who still only needs half a chance to make amazing things happen, as Sydney Stack was reminded last week — admits he’s had his fair share of worries about the players defending him in recent years.
“You get young kids that come in now that are fit as a fiddle and they’re big. You just think as you’re getting older … last year I thought the game was getting past me,” Betts told former teammate Mitch Robinson’s Rip Through It podcast this week.
“I didn’t have a great season last year and you get these young kids coming to play on you and you’re not getting near the ball … and they want to make a name for themselves, so it’s just hard.”
Betts kicked just 29 goals from 18 games last year, having kicked at least 50 goals in his four previous seasons with the Crows.
But Betts is back to averaging two goals per game this season, and has already had more goal assists this year than he had in 2018. And just as defenders have been doing their homework on Betts, the 32-year-old has started paying more attention to his opponents.
“As a forward line, we look at what their backs are doing. You’ve got to know what foot they kick with, how they like to play … Do they like pressure? Do they turn it over when they have pressure on?
“You’ve got to figure out each week how to nullify different opponents and different match-ups.”
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