The Kane game: Cornes opens up on confrontation, conflict and the time he ‘maybe' went too far

Sydney Morning Herald

4 days ago

Cornes, a former columnist for this masthead, is ubiquitous in football media. Flick the radio on first thing Monday morning and he's on SEN discussing the weekend's action with fellow 'Fireballer' David King. On Sunday night, he's on Seven for Kane's Call, giving the early take from the round that has been.
In between, he'll be on the small screen with Seven's Agenda Setters two nights a week, providing analysis for the network's coverage of Thursday night footy, back on radio for Friday breakfast and occasionally on SEN's Crunch Time show on Saturday morning.
Media jobs are as hotly contested as a stoppage inside 50. As a former footballer turned pundit once told this masthead, there are few people more paranoid in football than the ex-player in the media at the end of each season waiting to see the final list of retirees to gauge who could be coming after their gig.
Though Cornes' career with Port was decorated – winning four best and fairests, a premiership and twice an All-Australian – he knew his was not a CV that guaranteed a lengthy media career.
'When I started 10 years ago I just wanted to be good,' Cornes said. 'To be good, you've got to have an opinion. There's always going to be the next retired gun footballer who wants to do media.
'Yes, it's about creating what you're good at and what differentiates your style from the next player that's going to retire and got a better resume than yours.
'There's the opinionated side to me – that's the type of media I like to consume. There's nothing more boring than someone who doesn't have an opinion and shields themselves from what they really think.'
Cornes' interest in sports media goes back to his childhood when his father, Adelaide's inaugural coach Graham Cornes, was one half of 5AA's top-rating weekday drive time KG and Cornesy's Sports Show in the 1990s and 2000s.
The show's ability to mix news with hard-hitting, outrageous views, while always remaining engaging, left a mark on him.
A major consumer of US sports media, he is a big fan of media personalities Bill Simmons, Stephen A Smith, Skip Bayless and Colin Cowherd, who have all made millions from their combative commentary. He has based his style on them.
'I just think they're the best at it,' Cornes said. 'When I started playing football, [Warren] Tredrea is the best player at the club, what does he do? I'll go and shadow him for three weeks, that's what I did.
'Getting into media, what do the best, highest paid, most famous people do? They're all opinionists. They all have strong opinions. There's no one really over there that does the similar role to me without an opinion.
'It's about being as good as you possibly can be and taking bits and pieces from everyone, be that here, overseas or anywhere.'
Loading
Robust opinions inevitably bring blowback and create enemies. Cornes is not welcomed in the Bulldogs and North Melbourne rooms, due in-part to his stinging critique of the clubs, who play this Thursday night in a game broadcast by Seven.
Cornes is a critic of Dogs coach Beveridge, having called for his sacking due to what he says is the coach's inability to maximise the talent on the club's list. His critique of North young gun Harry Sheezel for not being damaging with the ball prompted the Kangaroos to ban him from interviewing their players and staff.
Two months on, Cornes, not known for admitting error, says he 'maybe' went too far for his excessive use of the terms 'Sheezy Ball', 'Sheezy Street' and 'Sheezy'.
'I just want to put on the record how highly I do rate him and the basis behind it was he wasn't being used effectively,' Cornes said. 'Did I say Sheezy Ball too many times? Maybe. There's clearly theatre involved in TV and entertainment.
'I didn't think in that instance I crossed the line at all. It wasn't personal – it was related to the way he was being used and the way he's playing the game.'
Cornes' numerous takes distract from his astute analysis, formed from poring over hours and hours of football. In a full round, Cornes watches, he figures, about 7½ of the nine games. If there's a talking point from a game he has not seen, he will catch up before forming an opinion.
Seven's director of sport Chris Jones, who poached him from Nine, the owner of this masthead, is a massive fan of the man who has added a cutting edge to AFL's free-to-air broadcast partner. Media veteran Caroline Wilson, a former chief football writer of The Age and current columnist, rates Cornes alongside Essendon great Matthew Lloyd as being the hardest workers she has seen in the football media.
'They both work so hard and put so much into their craft,' Wilson, who Cornes sees as a media mentor, said.
For two seasons, before leaving Nine, Cornes attracted plenty of eyeballs with his hard-hitting columns for The Age. One of his most-read rated all 18 senior coaches on their performances at post-match media conferences.
Even in the Sheezel episode, those who critiqued his delivery could not disagree with his analysis.
'Fundamentally, he's saying he's got to get more aggressive forward-half footy,' North Melbourne great and SEN colleague King said. 'He's probably right in that, and that's his opinion, but at the time the way it was worded, we had our differences in opinion on that.
'But that's his style. It's 'grab your attention, bring you now, this is a discussion'. I don't mind it.
'Kane's style in the media, I think, has been ahead of the pack. I think he leaves you in no uncertain terms where he sits, and he's happy to ride that out until he's prepared to concede the odd error, but he doesn't make too many blues.
'I marvel at his work ethic and his preparedness to put himself on the line when all those that tend to pot him from the cheap seats don't.'
Cornes accepts he will upset viewers, listeners and industry insiders with his forthright views. Beveridge, Alastair Clarkson (who coached him as an assistant at Port Adelaide) and Taylor Walker are among those whom he has angered. He's not fazed. He takes calls weekly from those in the game asking for clarification about something he has said.
'You have to put the work in – have a reason why you're saying that – and you have to believe what you're saying,' Cornes said. 'If you tick all those boxes the blowback is part of doing the job.
'If I didn't want blowback, I wouldn't be doing the job properly because everything would be, 'Nice, great kick, great handball, great umpiring decision, great coaching performance'. I'd be out of a job by now if that was my style.
Loading
'To do the job successfully I accept that is part of it and know that I've put the work in as to why I've said what I've said, and have a reason. Some of your opinions will be wrong, you don't get everything right. When that happens, I try my best to put my hand up and own that.'
Cornes loves on-air confrontation. When Bulldogs great Luke Darcy accused him of being 'more mean-spirited and nasty to people than anyone in the history of our industry', Cornes said his immediate thought was how compelling this must have been for listeners.
'I marvel at his work ethic and his preparedness to put himself on the line when all those that tend to pot him from the cheap seats don't.'
Kane Cornes' SEN colleague, David King
As a player, Cornes did not take criticism well – a point he admits. When former Crows captain Chris McDermott wrote in 2009 that Cornes was no longer in Port's best 22, he refused to speak to McDermott for two years.
He laughs when asked how Kane Cornes the footballer would handle criticism from Kane Cornes the analyst.
Loading
'As I got into my mid-20s, if I thought the criticism was out of line I would have picked up the phone and had that discussion,' Cornes said. 'That's what I think I'd have done now.'
Cornes was 26 when McDermott, a childhood hero of his from seeing him close-up in the Crows rooms, penned the column. He sees criticism of today's players as coming with the territory of a job that pays on average $460,000 a year.
'There's 16-20 weeks off a year, you get to play sport for a living, keep fit and there's not that many downsides,' Cornes said. 'If one of the downsides every now and then, once every two or three years, you're subject to some really strong criticism, as my career went on you understand that's part and parcel of it.'
The personal and professional have collided this year for Cornes. At the height of the Sheezel storm, premiership teammate and wedding party member Domenic Cassisi said Cornes, as a player who struggled with media criticism, should be more sympathetic with his critique of current players.
Cornes believed Cassisi had exaggerated in saying he struggled to come to training because of the criticism he received. Known widely for the meticulous manner in which he prepared, Cornes said the only times he missed training were when his oldest son Eddy was fighting health issues from being born with heart defects.
'I was a bit flat that Dom went with I wouldn't turn up to training, because that's one thing I prided myself on,' Cornes said. 'I don't think I took a sick day in my career. The only thing I missed was a pre-season camp one year because Eddy was in for surgery.
'I think he overstepped the mark on that one, but he and I can have that discussion. At some point I'll catch up and have a chat to him.'