Dennis Cometti. Dead? Not Dennis!

And so young, too. Just 76 years old. The bloke was so loved, so full of life. Has there been a more widely loved sports commentator in the history of our country?

I suspect not. For while the likes of Richie Benaud, Ray Warren, Frank Hyde, Ron Casey, Rex Mossop, Norman May and Gordon Bray all had their devotees, the thing about Cometti was that his devotees, and in his case, disciples, extended way beyond the sport that he was principally associated with, Aussie Rules.

I knew nothing about him until the late ’90s, when my on-air partner at 2SM then 2WS, Doug Mulray, would come into the studio on a Monday chortling about something he’d heard someone called – and Doug would imitate his voice – Dennis Comettiiiii, say on the weekend.

Alastair Clarkson of the Hawks is interviewed by Dennis Cometti in 2014. Credit: Getty Images

Doug Mulray, who was a rugby league man to the core, and who was a famous wit in his own right, was raving about how clever an Aussie Rules bloke was?

I started watching Aussie Rules myself to see what all the fuss was about, was not disappointed, and ended up spruiking his charms so often in these pages, that in 2007 the great man asked me to write the foreword to his book, That’s Ambitious, a collection of his genius bits of commentary.

© The Sydney Morning Herald