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Samantha Lane leaves Before the Game for Seven

AFL commentator Samantha Lane has left TEN's Before the Game after ten years to join the Seven Network.

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2012-12-22_1757AFL commentator Samantha Lane has left TEN’s Before the Game after ten years to join the Seven Network.

She will join Seven’s Saturday night panel alongside Brian Taylor, Luke Darcy, Matthew Richardson and Cameron Ling and have a regular role in the match broadcast.

Lane, who also writes for The Age, said: “Ten years working on Before the Game was more pleasure than work. My colleagues there became very good friends and they’ll never stop making me laugh. But I’ve dreamt of being part of an AFL broadcast team since footy stole a piece of my heart, and the opportunities offered by Seven have made a difficult decision easier. That’s what this is all about and I couldn’t be more excited.”

Saul Shtein, Seven’s head of sport, said: “Sam is a terrific addition to our Saturday night broadcast.  She knows and loves football, and she’s proven herself to be a great performer on TV with her strong opinions mixed with warmth, irreverence and insight into the game. We’re delighted she’s joined the team.”

7 Responses

  1. Enjoyed Sam on the panel but she was a bit too serious Really important to have a female on the team so it’s not like the footy show blokes club. Angela filledin during the Olympics and yes was excellent so hope she joins the team full time. Sam on seven is a good fit.

  3. Ten will likely go with Angela Pippos as a replacement. She filled in for Sam throughout this year over the Olympics break and was fantastic.

    Sam will be great on Saturday nights, so this is a win for both parties I think.

  5. I am disappointed to see Sam leave BTG. She was the only serious football person on the panel (apologies to Andrew Maher) so they have a spot to fill. And didn’t they just show Kelli Underwood the door with a ‘redundancy’ package? Their in-house replacement has left the building.

    As for Seven’s Saturday night – hey, I still go out on Saturdays – and the few games I did see last year – well, the on-air team didn’t do it for me – especially BT.

  6. I think she would be a great addition to seven’s saturday night afl broadcast. Always thought she was good on before the game. Ten did a better job of saturday football with before the game in between two afl matches and the fifth quarter at the end of the evening giving a wrap of the round. It had a definite structure. Seven need to greatly improve their saturday night coverage (I don’t tend to watch sat afternoon that much because 1.5hr delay is just too long). Saturday night coverage is over 4 hours seeing the same personalities give the same opinions. Thats why before the game worked so well with different hosts to the commentators of the matches and the fifth qtr also had different hosts. Seven have a long way to go to improve their coverage. Also I am dissappointed at the camera work during the matches. Sometimes its so difficult to see who the player is that is holding the ball. I don’t understand why they have to be so far away. I personally think the abc do a better job of the camera work on their vfl coverage.

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