Tag: Cameron Ling

Kane Cornes: The league’s biggest hot take artist

Kane Cornes had a short-lived career in the fire brigade after his retirement from the AFL.

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.

Remembering Geelong’s quiet superstar

Corey played 276-games, winning three premierships with the Cats.

I once asked Western Bulldogs Club Doctor Gary Zimmerman, as part of a magazine interview, who was his favourite sports star. Dr Zimmerman took a while to come up with a response, and fair enough too, it’s a loaded question with so many options.

Before answering, he asked me the same question, who was my favourite sports star? I said Joel Corey.

It was easy to forget, in the bevy of superstars which made up the glorious era of 2007-2011, the tall and athletic midfielder from East Perth, in the number 11. For a start, Corey shared midfield time with Gary Ablett, Jimmy Bartel, Joel Selwood, Cameron Ling, Paul Chapman, Steve Johnson, etc. etc. It’s unfair to leave any names out, but you get the idea.

On-field he didn’t really wow you with the utter brilliance of Ablett, the big moment timing of Bartel, the unrelenting courage of Selwood or the mercurialness of Johnson. He was just always there, a clearance machine, running all day, the ability to hit any target no mater what side of the body he used. He may not have appeared on every highlight reel, but via the stat sheet and more importantly, the eye test, you’d notice his impact, even if the wider football community may not have.

Aside from his on-field exploits, the true reason Corey got lost in the shuffle of Geelong’s supreme midfield was his off-field demeanour. Corey may have been the most unassuming three-time premiership and two-time best and fairest winning footballer to have ever played the game.

He wouldn’t appear on any pre-game radio broadcast, you wouldn’t see him on Open Mike and he certainly wouldn’t be found as a panellist on the Footy Show. In fact, the only piece of media I can remember Corey ever doing was the wonderfully produced 2007 Grand Final reflection.

Long after the crowd had gone home and thousands of delirious Cats fans were back celebrating across all corners of Australia, Corey led the team back onto the MCG for a quiet moment or two left to ponder what they had just accomplished.

Not only does the video focus on Corey, he also narrates it, which for many fans of the league and maybe even some Cats fans, may have been the first time you had ever heard his voice. It is fitting that the one-time Corey chose to take a small step into the limelight, it was in front of an empty stadium, with only his teammates by his side.

Thankfully, his brilliance was never lost on Geelong. He is one of only 24-players to have won multiple Carji Greeves Medals. The first coming in 2005 and the second coming in 2008. Frustratingly and by coincidence, both of Corey’s best and fairest winning years ended in utter despair for the Cats.

And maybe by fate, Corey’s career would end on a brutal night for the Geelong Football Club as well. A preliminary final loss to arch rivals Hawthorn proved to be his final game and of course, with little fanfare, he announced his retirement a few weeks later.

If there was one way to describe the impact of Corey on Geelong and the AFL, aside from his three premiership medallions, two All Australians and prominent facial hair, Corey was one of the first truly athletic, oversized midfielders. It has become the blueprint for a prototypical midfielder in 2017. Corey was that player drafted 17-years earlier. It’s little wonder Marcus Bontempelli has turned into a star of the competition, he has the original as his midfield coach.

It’s still a little distressing seeing him in Bulldogs colours on gameday, one would have thought with such little fame off the field, Corey would have retired and wandered off from the game. Alas he continues at Whitten Oval where he was no doubt an unheralded piece of their premiership win.

I hope and I’m sure many other Geelong fans also wish to see Corey back in Geelong colours in some capacity. He did make one trip down the highway as a guest of the club, in a motorcade as they honoured the 2007 premiership team prior to the Round 10 clash against Port Adelaide.

Although with so many club legends there that night, you may have missed Joel Corey and that was no doubt fine with him.