Dennis Cometti brought joy to the commentary box, but there was one thing he loathed

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To quote the late and legendary commentator Dennis Cometti: “What I found over the years sitting and watching is that you can see where you can say things and where you can’t say things.”

For Cometti, it was all about timing and balance, and it was an art he came to perfect over decades.

Dennis Cometti on Seven’s Friday Night Football in 2009, with Leigh Matthews, Nathan Buckley and Bruce McAvaney.

And so it was on the eve of the 2026 AFL season that the health struggles his family had kept private in recent years finally overcame him.

Maintaining the timing that only a precious few in Cometti’s profession manage became the task facing new Swans boss Matthew Pavlich, who was hosting visiting media at Sydney headquarters on Wednesday when he heard his friend and one-time business associate had died.

Having already insisted to the AFL that the Sydney-Carlton game would balance celebrating the SCG season opener with a sombre pre-game tribute to the 15 people slain at Bondi, the Swans – in league with Cometti’s long-time employer Channel Seven – will now also screen a tribute to the Australian Football Hall of Fame member Cometti at half-time.

Seven announced this month that a Cometti documentary had moved into pre-production.

The project had been driven over the off-season by sport bosses Chris Jones and Gary O’Keefe along with Cometti’s long-time colleague, co-caller and fellow hall of famer Bruce McAvaney.

That trio has been aware for some time that Cometti’s brilliant mind and famous turns of phrase had deserted him. They hoped, though, that the former WAFL footballer, coach and long-time commentator and sportscaster would live to witness the doco being made with the support of the Cometti family.

Most sports lovers – in fact, millions of Australians – will remember where they were when Kieren Perkins won the 1500 metres freestyle from lane eight at the Atlanta Olympics. Or to quote from Cometti’s superb call: “This is rare gold! The best kind of gold!”

Like Mike Williamson on Alex Jesaulenko a quarter-of-a-century earlier, the narrator went on to own a big part of the story.

But my personal experience with Dennis introduced me to another side of his analytical brilliance. He might have pre-planned some of his more brilliant one-liners but off the cuff and on the spot, he never backed away from the bigger issues. Working alongside him pre-game, he brought joy and humour and fun to the commentary box, but he could also be brutally acerbic.

If there was one thing he loathed, it was fellow commentators and journalists who behaved like prima donnas. In fact, he was not a fan of any form of poor behaviour in the commentary box.

Shane Healy, the 3AW boss, was overjoyed when he lured the famous caller before the start of the 2009 season. The deal was struck when Cometti nominated an annual fee and Healy returned serve only to be told by the commentator: “Shane. This is not a negotiation.”

West Coast were still suffering from the cultural aftershock embodied by the Ben Cousins era. Behind the scenes during that dark time, Eagles leaders from on and off the field went to him for guidance or simply saw him as a sounding board.

I asked him one day on air about Cousins and his early years. Dennis hesitated, grimaced and went on to liken certain members of the fallen Brownlow medallist’s family for a period to those stage clans who enter their children in beauty pageants. It was such a brave thing for a West Australian to say at the time.

He was a generous pre-game contributor, generous to journalists and a great dinner party companion full of brilliant anecdotes and equally at home with music, cinema and politics as he was with sport. His breadth of general knowledge was extraordinary. And like all great conversationalists, he listened.

In 2010, I sat alongside him at the 3AW Grand Final Breakfast, and he astonished me and many of the audience when he revealed the song Last Man Standing, which he had written and produced with an American band with whom he had become friendly. It was a catchy tune and he rebooted it for the 2020 COVID grand final pre-game presentation at the Gabba.

I was sorry when AW was forced to drop him from the station’s grand final commentary team in 2011 after it emerged that Cometti had reached a new deal with Triple M. Cometti could be sentimental about football and art, but he never blinked on the occasions he switched radio and TV networks.

Having called his last televised grand final for Seven at the Bulldogs’ drought-breaker in 2016, it was at Triple M calling the Melbourne premiership at Optus Stadium in Perth in 2021 where Cometti’s AFL commentary career came to a close.

It was that year that I spoke to him for the last time, and like so many of the best football people in one of the great extended families of Australian sport, we picked up where we left off. And Dennis did not mince words about the coach I called him about.

Unwilling to go public with his health issues, the Cometti family did take him out in the lead-up to the recent State of Origin carnival in Perth. Many members of the aforementioned football family were struck by the physical toll his illness had taken on him. Perhaps there was some sense of relief amid the sorrow for his beloved family who cared for him until the end.

Dennis Cometti died too soon, but happily for the game’s heritage, his brilliance has been captured forever. Not only was he a true original, but he managed something few Australian rules commentators can claim to have achieved. From the broadcast box, from behind his binoculars, Cometti’s words made the game better.