He is good on television, too, and his pitch reports for a New Zealand station became famous for their innovative approach: one was delivered as a poem, another while lying flat and listening to the earth. When he is on Sky’s The Verdict with the priceless Bob Willis, he matches the great ham curmudgeon’s habit of breaking the fourth wall, looking straight down the camera and addressing the viewer, but to a wholly different effect. While Willis’s shtick of permanently being at the end of his tether is an act that is easy to misinterpret, Coney’s twinkle screams “perspective” – this magnificent obsession is still very much a game.