Growing up on Sydney's North shore, the only exposure I had to Australian Rules was Lou Richards and Peter Landy calling the match of the day on Saturday afternoons.

The weather in Melbourne always seemed bleak, the grounds were always packed and places like Footscray, Essendon and Hawthorn might as well have been on another planet.

There were a couple of rabid ex-Victorians floating around the school yard imploring people like me to consider the virtues of the indigenous game a little more closely.

I was happy to pay them more attention than most.

Many years later work brought me to Hobart, my chance to learn about the game - by jumping in the deep end.

Every Saturday we'd call a state league match from somewhere in Tasmania, from the far south of Huonville to Burnie in the North West.

The demise of Statewide footy in 2000 meant my role as footy commentator went in to mothballs; that was until a week before the Beijing Olympics I got the call, "Hawthorn is playing the Brisbane Lions in Launceston on August 9 and you're on."

For a commentator long removed from the week to week discipline of calling footy, it was time for a crash course in revision.

First the numbers: many a late night was spent learning them off by heart, Crawford nine, Jonathon Brown 16, Franklin (easy to pick) 23 and so on, nearly 40 players in all.

Learning the numbers is only half the game though. Studying tape of the teams is vital in identifying features that make the naming of a player running at full speed in the distance easier to do; Bateman the Dreadlocks, Brennan carries the ball in his left hand, Merret red hair.

It's a lot to cram in. The hour before the start of the game is critical for your preparation, the warm up gives you time to study the players first hand through the binoculars.

It's a tense time; numbers and phrases whirring through your head as the start of the game gets closer and closer.

At the first bounce, the packed stadium roars in delight and the play moves end to end faster and cleaner than anything I've seen before, my first call goes something like "Bateman down the grandstand wing, hand pass to Crawford kicks long inside fifty looking for FRANKLIN."

The time flew by and before we knew it the game was winding down, my last burst of description was the delightful moment when Shane Crawford kicked a goal in his 300th game.

The Hawks sealed an impressive win, thousands teemed on to York Park for a mass kick to kick and ABC Grandstand wrapped up from Launceston and crossed to day one of the Beijing Olympic Games.

Back in the car, it was time to rewind the game in my mind, come down from the buzz of a live call and reflect on how a boy from the North Shore of Sydney finished up calling Australian Rules Footy, to every corner of the country.