Since Wayne Carey stopped playing the game he dominated throughout the 90s when injury finally stopped him in his tracks mid-season last year in Adelaide, he was always destined for a high-profile TV pundit role with Foxtel.

His ties to Foxtel go back almost a decade. They have shared in his highs and lows and Foxtel’s head of programming, Brian Walsh, has long been his mentor, so it was predestined that in 2005 it was time for the man variously known as The King and The Duck to step up to the Fox Footy microphone and tell us what he knew about the game.

Carey has been a revelation in his smooth transition to TV co-host of Fox Footy’s Saturday Central, but it’s his role as special comments man that yesterday saw him put in a best-on-ground performance that won’t thrill the umpires.

The man is shaping up as a fantastic game-day analyst who’s already up with the best if not already past them, and Foxtel is going to have a fight on its hands to keep him off free-to-air when his next contract is negotiated.

Read here how Wayne Carey argued so persuasively (and often) that “umpires do carry grudges” – who’s to argue with The King?