Visited my cousin in Castlecomer one year and she had a raspberry white cake from Crotty's for dessert. Best cake I've ever had. I had eaten raspberries in all its forms before and was OK with it, but Crotty's cake made me an avid fan
Experience. Change my mind
I was too young to watch him play and never paid attention to his studio analyst career before joining the main broadcast. I have no other context for him. He’s also had about a year as the main guy which I think is plenty of time.
I find him to be very vanilla. He has decent analysis but, like everything else in his personality, it’s all so muted. He never seems excited for big plays which I find adds to the experience of the broadcast. He’s not a big X & O guy and he’s not overly charismatic. He just comments on things like a guy who knows the sport but in a casual way (that may be his charm). Maybe it’s his monotone that I find so boring but regardless I just find him to contribute little to no value to watching the games.
This comes to the elephant in the room that is Tony Fiorentino. I thought he was getting older but still had the charisma and warmth of a guy you just liked to hang with and watch the games. As a former coach he had some solid knowledge even if his NY accent was tough to listen to at times. I thought his firing was unfair and he would make mistakes at times but I would’ve kept him until they had an A-list replacement or Tony himself retired.
I’m not saying Crotty is terrible by any means and I know that some of the other teams announcers are genuinely terrible but overall I guess I just see him as replaceable and bland. Wondering what the rest of HEAT nation think of him.
Was watching the Clippers vs Celtics game and my god the Celtics announcers are some of the most annoying people to ever say a word. They have annoying voices, are extremely biased and sometimes go moments without saying a word, which is kind of good. At one point one of them shouted “THATS BOGUS.” The experience made me appreciate Eric Reid even more and cemented him as the best local play by play announcer in the league
It seems to be the consensus that Ryan Crotty has become an invaluable player for how the All Blacks midfield operates in both a defensive and attack capacity. But he used to be just a simple back up in the side and his absence wouldn't even be discussed.
So it made me wonder about how Barrett controls the side. It struck me the other day I almost never see Barrett yelling at his players. He always seems to be pretty content with how things are going (he does play for the all blacks). But when you watch most other tens (Farrell, Sexton, Biggar, and Carter back in the day) you always see them screaming and shouting at their forwards and instructing them what to do. In terms of body language, I've never really seen Barrett do anything close to that.
So is this a case of where the All Blacks need Ryan Crotty as a leadership figure in this backline to help Barrett steer the side? The wheels well and truly fell off after Crotty departed in both the Aussie game and the lions tour. This all leads me to think that Barrett isn't quite as good as he could be when it comes to dictating what the team should be doing when Crotty isn't around. And when you consider the type of guys he's played with (Nonu and Smith at the canes and the crazy experience the WC ABs had) he probably hasn't even had to play that role.
Is this a potential area of concern for the ABs going forward?
You could say that Carter worked with better players and he himself didn't need to do a great deal with regards to game management, but I'm not fully convinced that this is the case.
It would be interesting to get some thoughts on this. But it will likely result in downvotes from people who think Barrett is Neo in disguised as a Rugby player and without fault.
