Close your eyes for a moment and picture yourself in this scenario. You’ve entered your 15th season in the league. Approaching 300 games, you can feel the end is near.
Midway through what you know will be your final season, you decide you want to join the fire brigade. Because you are part of one of South Australia’s most famous sporting families and you’re a premiership player and 4x best-and-fairest winner at your club, you skip the admission process and get straight in, you’re now a fiery.
But you soon realise being a fireman isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You love footy and need to be back in the system and because you’re an ex-player, you pass all the requirements to join the footy media. Now the challenge to become relevant in the bloated sea of ex-players, turned “experts” begins.
Kane Cornes is the most fascinating retired player to walk into the media, maybe ever. A hot take specialist who attempts to be as controversial as possible which has somehow forged him his own section within the football media.
For a quick example, just look back to Monday after the first week of the JLT Series. Melbourne’s 53-point victory over North Melbourne was definitely impressive. A good spread of goalkickers, they looked organised defensively and the midfield proved much stronger than their Roo opponents. However, it’s only the pre-season and the game doesn’t really mean anything.
So, someone coming out and say, suggesting Melbourne will make the Grand Final immediately after a pre-season win would just be offering up fairly predictable clickbait. Kane, please indulge us.
That is how Cornes has operated since he retired in 2015 and that makes him either the least self-aware person in the media (beside Mark Robinson) or, the smartest operator in the football media.
There are a lot of personalities a player can take on when entering the media. It is something a lot of players want to do, and why not, there’s no experience, or skills, or ability required, it guarantees you a decent pay check, and it is easy work.
The biggest challenge is staying relevant, as each year another group of footy legends realise there’s no point leaving the system, even once they hang up the boots.
The easiest persona is the soft, “good bloke” routine. Call that the Cameron Ling. Be really nice to everyone you interact with, never criticise anyone and basically never even have an opinion. This is easy, people like you, you’ll never offend anyone and never risk losing your prime position.
A harder identity is the one Cornes has chosen to take on. Be as controversial as possible, speak exclusively in hot takes and make it your prime objective to create headlines. And, amazingly he’s beaten the system. In the world of clickbait and media companies desperate for clicks and readers, hot takes are golden.
Here’s a brief list of corners Cornes has stood on as he’s ascended to be king of the controversial opinion. Accusing Patrick Dangerfield of exaggerating injuries. Labelled Alex Rance a diver. Said Hawthorn’s O’Meara trade will be one of the worst of all time. And called for player salaries to be made public. Those are all in the past 12 months.
He doesn’t even limit himself to his former sport. Going down the easy “female tennis players shouldn’t be paid as much as men” path and what has become the most effective way to drive clicks via riling up a readership, soccer will never be as popular as AFL in Australia.
That’s what Cornes does, throws out grenades and watches them explode in the comment section. It’s perfect, for him and whoever he works for. Hence why he’s on radio in Adelaide on 5AA, and safely entrenched in Craig Hutchinson’s Croc Media stable which has netted him a spot on the Sunday Footy Show and inexplicably, a three-hour radio spot on SEN, broadcasting out of Adelaide.
Cornes probably doesn’t even believe half of what he says, he just says it for effect, he’s a genius. Or he does believe everything says and is an idiot, in any case his unique brand of controversy is perfect for 2018.
For your average football supporter, they’ve quickly grown to despise Kane Cornes and everything he stands for, and that’s the point, that is the power of the hot take.