Final call – chief commentators in Brisbane, Adelaide and Hobart depart in Tabcorp purge

Tabcorp has made a suite of changes to its racing commentary teams in Brisbane, Adelaide and Tasmania, with racecallers Brett Davis, Josh Fleming and Colin McNiff to depart their roles.

The decision sees South Australian commentator Tim Edwards elevated to the role of Adelaide’s number one thoroughbred racecaller ahead of this weekend’s Group 1 South Australian Derby.

It is believed Edwards received a late call-up on Tuesday night for Wednesday’s meeting at Murray Bridge having called only three thoroughbred meetings in the past three months.

It brings an end to Davis’ five-year stint as South Australia’s thoroughbred commentator having relocated from Hong Kong for the role.

Fleming has been the principal Brisbane caller for Sky Racing since 2015, but has departed the role with David Fowler, who is the long-time metropolitan caller on RadioTAB, to take over on Sky Channel and the Seven Network during the upcoming Brisbane carnival.

McNiff has been a racing broadcasting icon in Tasmania over the years and in February called his 35th edition of the Hobart Cup.

His role as chief thoroughbred racecaller in the state will be filled by Duncan Dornauf and Matthew Robertson.

“Sky Racing has reorganised its team of racecallers to create a simpler and more efficient broadcasting model, which forms part of a broader modernisation of the network,” a Tabcorp spokesman said.

“Sky congratulates David Fowler and Tim Edwards on their elevations and we look forward to them being the voices of the Queensland and South Australian carnivals across all of our networks.

“Sky Racing acknowledges the significant contribution and service that our departing on-air talent have made, not only to the network, but their local racing industries.”

Tabcorp employs racecallers in Queensland, South Australia, NSW and Tasmania. Racing Victoria is the employer of thoroughbred commentators in that state.

Sydney-based greyhound caller Matt Jackson will also leave his role.

The racecallers are not the only ones to depart Tabcorp, with other redundancies including legendary bookmaking figure Gerard Daffy.

Daffy has been working in the corporate bookmaking industry since the launch of Centrebet in 1996.

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Asked by The Straight’s Warwick Barr late last year when he will retire, Daffy replied: “When they tell me they don’t need me any more. It could be tomorrow. It could be next week. It could be next year.

“But I’ll never retire from what I do, which is get up and watch sport and racing all day and read whatever I can about betting and pricing.”