‘Most versatile sports commentator Australia has produced’: Hadley hails Morrow

by Admin
July 12, 2024

Ray Hadley has hailed David Morrow as “the most versatile sports commentator Australia has produced” after it was announced this week he would be inducted into the NRL Hall of Fame.

There will be plenty of debate about who should become rugby league’s next Immortal – but many will applaud the decision to acknowledge Morrow’s contribution to the game as he fights brain cancer.

Now 71, the man nicknamed “Thirsty’“struggles to speak, but was reduced to tears when good friend Hadley broke the news to him and his wife, Chris.

Hadley is on the NRL’s Hall of Fame committee, and had to seek permission from ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys and CEO Andrew Abdo to go public with Morrow’s honour.

“It’s an acknowledgment for a bloke who spent over 50 years in broadcasting, and most of it in rugby league,” said the host of 2GB’s Ray Hadley Morning Show, which is owned by Nine Entertainment, publishers of this masthead.

“It was always going to happen, but it’s happened now under these circumstances, which are sad and tragic, but I’m also happy that ‘Thirsty’ is still here and can be acknowledged by his peers and the NRL.

NRL Hall of Fame inductee David Morrow.

“He is, without doubt, the most versatile sports commentator Australia has produced. He did cricket better than most, was a race-caller along with me in the 1980s and 1990s – we’d call the Harold Park trots together – and you’d get to the Olympics and he could call track and field, hockey … if there are 33 sports that need calling at these Paris Olympics, he could call 31 of them.”

Morrow covered eight Olympic Games and six Commonwealth Games, including the 1994 edition in Canada when he and Hadley enjoyed a memorable night listening to stories from former ABC Perth caller George Grljusich until the early hours.