Trent Cotchin says he still hasn’t seen Kane Cornes’ infamous critique of his media performance and he let the controversial pundit’s brutal takedown “fall on deaf ears”.
Cornes caused a stir when he made fun of Cotchin’s occasional dry moments in front of the camera.
Cornes parodied a video shared on the 7Sport TikTok page where Cotchin spoke over the top of vision grabbed from Collingwood’s loss to Sydney in Round 1.
Cotchin provided his expert analysis on where it was going wrong for Collingwood in trying to move the ball forward against the Swans — but Cornes feasted upon the segment while making light of Cotchin’s somewhat stiff presentation style.
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Cornes’ imitation had the Footy Show panel of Nathan Brown, Matthew Lloyd, Tony Jones and Damian Barrett in stitches.
Cornes later said: “Take it in the right way. We take the mickey out of ourselves.”
Co-host Tony Jones responded to one quip by saying: “You’ve just character assassinated Trent Cotchin.”
The segment didn’t sit well with Matthew Richardson and Luke Darcy, who called Cornes’ style “nasty” and “mean spirited” in an icy radio exchange.
Cotchin, who captained Richmond to three premierships, was asked about the saga by Mark Howard on The Howie Games podcast.
“Well I didn’t even know about it initially,” Cotchin began.
“Obviously the people it did impact contacted me to see how I was. I was like ‘it is what it is’.
“Kane always has lots to say about the Tigers and in particular me, throughout the time he’s been in commentary. And that’s fine. (He’s) one of those people where … it kind of falls on deaf ears for me.”
Cotchin explained he was more concerned about the production staff who helped make the video
“The purpose was for TikTok, it was meant to be kind of makeshift,” he said.
“It wasn’t meant to be like it was shown on a TV show. And they acknowledged that it probably needed to look a bit better after the fact. For me, it was the young guy who actually put it all together.”
Howard asked: “Was he shattered?”
Cotchin replied: “Shattered. Absolutely gutted. Felt like he’d let me down.”
Cotchin said his advice was: “One, don’t take any notice of it. The fact people are seeing it is suggesting you’re doing some good stuff anyway. The reality is this is the world we live in.
“I still haven’t seen the actual — is a segment called ‘Media-ocre’ or something like that? — yeah I haven’t even seen it.
“If I let other people’s opinion of me, or anything that I’m involved in, impact me on a day to day point of view, I’d live a pretty unhappy life.”
Cotchin has joined Channel 7’s AFL coverage this year and appears on the Talking Footy panel show alongside Geelong champion Joel Selwood.
The Richmond legend said negative feedback aimed at media personalities was often made under the guise of “attempted humour”.
“We had a guest on (Talking Footy) last week and you look at some of the social media comments and so much of it is positive but they still have to leave some form of negativity,” Cotchin said.
“Whether it’s ‘Has a head for radio’. And it’s like what’s the need? I’ll probably never understand the motivations behind people. I think it’s attempted humour and it’s sometimes the Aussie way.”
Cotchin did reveal he had received some requests from the AFL cohort to roast Cornes for his loss to fellow former player and pundit Nathan Brown in their boxing fight in Adelaide.
“I did have a lot of current AFL players reach out on social though saying, ‘Maybe you should review Kane Cornes’ fighting performance’,” Cotchin said.
“It’s not just me, there’s a lot of people out there that are out to get him,” he laughed.