ONE FM’s footy commentary team has had a heavenly boost in recent times with Shepparton priest Father Jackson Saunders now part of the award winning team.
Over the past two seasons Father Jackson has added his broadcasting skills and distinctive voice to compliment regular ONE FM callers Jason Welsh, Paul ‘Digger’ Tricarico, Mark ‘Stats’ Owen and Kyle Power.
After moving from Bendigo to Shepparton last year to be the new assistant priest of St Brendan’s and chaplain of Notre Dame College, Fr Jackson made his debut broadcasting some Kyabram District League games last season before the community station’s much welcome return to covering GVL clashes.
But Fr Jackson is no rookie when it comes to the microphone and covering a variety of sports.
He has been working in radio since 2007, delivering sports reports for Bendigo radio stations Fresh FM and Pheonix FM and also commentating on football games in the Bendigo, Loddon Valley, Heathcote and Maryborough-Castlemaine leagues.
He has also covered Women’s National Basketball League games and Cricket Bendigo matches and made many guest appearances on Radio Sport National with Fr Gerard Downing.
Fr Jackson admits he is a sports fanatic and when at school in Bendigo played most sports.
But when he decided to join the seminary he had to reluctantly give up his active sporting pursuits due to time and commitment factors.
In a demonstration for his love of commentating football, Fr Jackson recently had to tell a couple of parents whose child he was christening to be spot on time for the ceremony because he had to race off and cover a KDL game for ONE FM.
ONE FM operations manager Jason Welsh said Fr Jackson had become a treasured member of the station’s commentary team and had added greatly to its professionalism.
‘‘It’s been a real blessing to have him on board,’’ said Welsh with just a slight hint of playing on words.
Six-week suspension
The GVL tribunal came down hard on Benalla forward Josh Mellington on two reports by umpires of abusive, insulting, threatening and using obscene language towards an umpire in the Kyabram-Benalla clash on June 23. He faced similar charges from the league’s review officer.
Mellington, who was fronting the tribunal for the fourth time this year, was hit with a six-match suspension. This means he has been sidelined until the last home-and-away game this year which is ironically against Kyabram again but this time at Benalla
Numbers confusion
Onlookers who attended the Girgarre-Undera KDL clash found it a tad confusing trying to sort out the players by their numbers if they weren’t familiar with them.
Not many Girgarre numbers in the league’s weekly publication 5th Quarter matched up with the players wearing the numbers, which was a bit baffling for fans like me who were at the game.
But the reason was the jumpers on the day were produced especially for the Indigenous round and it was a matter of if it fits, claim it, because there wasn’t enough time to make the changes to get the numbers on the jumpers to match up with players’ normal numbers.
Happy ‘brotherhood’
Kyabram’s Ryan brothers — Brendan, Peter, Francis and Kevin — were pretty happy last Friday when the pacer they have an ownership interest in saluted at Albion Park in Queensland.
Little Miss Lily, trained by their cousin, Shepparton horseman Patrick Ryan, and driven by Anthony Butt, had a tough run outside the pacemaker and dug deep to ward off a wall of several challengers in the home straight at nice odds of 10-1.
The three-year-old filly has the Queensland Oaks as her main mission for her trip north.
• Kyabram trots trainer Mick Blackmore enjoyed an overdue win with trotter Yankee Lover at Monday’s Charlton meeting.
Reinswoman Jordan Chibnall gave the five-year-old Love You gelding the run of the race and Yankee Lover finished powerfully to mow down the favourite and pacemaker Wishupon A Dream to end a run of 12 outs from the winner’s circle and notch his fourth career win.
There was a touch of sadness to the win with one his breeders, Stanhope trots identity Joan Shaw, recently passing away.
Blackmore’s partner Pam Patten races Yankee Lover on lease.