But surely a chap of his "stature" has an onus to talk sense not clap trap.Thats the trouble with the sky commentary team prescious few do talk sense.They seem to want to create controversy when there quite frankly is none.

There's opinions, and there's pure rubbish. When he spoke to Jon Wells before the Grand Final, Clarke said it would be the best final in history. Then a sentence later, he says Wigan will win comfortably. I just love how Leeds keep making him eat his words!

For Phil Clarke the two sentences don't contradict each other.

clarke: it's going to be the best final in history eddeh!
hemmings: predictions?
clarke: wigan will win by 30 eddeh
hemmings: okayyyyyyyy

Just rewatching the game. For all the Wigan fans moaning about the McGuire non-knockon...even Phil Clarke said it didn't go forward

And tbf when the others are saying Leeds should go for 2 points when we get the late penalty he's the only one who calls it right to keep the ball and keep field position down that end. Wigan had 3 more sets after that and they started them all around 95m away from our try line.

Yep, he was also the only one to say Wigan shouldn't have taken the two

He does talk much more sense than Eddie and stevo but then let's himself down with stupid bias (for example trying to argue that it wasn't a penalty when manfredi dumped hall on his head)

And guess who was the only other person to think it wasn't a penalty? The other commentator who is hugely unprofessional, Terry O'Connor.

There's many things that annoy me about the Sky coverage of RL but the top of the list is having unprofessional people like O'Connor and Clarke (on too many occasions) on the show. It makes the whole thing look like its a 2nd tier production that Sky aren't really bothered about.
Football, Cricket and Union never (or very rarely) seem to have people on their coverage who either can't hide their bias or can't speak properly.

His Wigan accent is very strong

In the mid 90s we almost had to move out of Headingley and down to Elland road like paupers and the Sleeve and Caddick came in and 2004 we won SL first title for 32 years we have now won 7 Super League titles in 11years .Now Mr Clarke that is the Rugby Gods at work

I can honestly say I said the same as Clarke, two points could have quite easily given them the field position advantage from the kick off

I think virtually everyone where I was sitting thought the same. The sense of relief was palpable. To be honest, this doesn't say a huge amount for Clarke's perceptiveness, it's more an indication of a lack of it by Stevo and Eddie. That said, I reckon Clarke is a fairly decent summariser when he's not over-exhilarated by unfolding events on the field, a trait that's less and less evident these days.

Out of all the teams in SL & NRL realistically who wouldn't have gone for 2?

I think the field position after taking 2 points is a bit of a red herring. I think Leeds were looking at a repeat set near a tired opponents line and we're trying to kill the match by scoring a try. Right call for me.

Clarke has a knowledge of RL that should make him an asset to Sky's coverage on a par with Jon Wells and Brian Carney. I don't expect commentators not to follow and be passionate about a team. But I do expect them to be professional enough to kerb their bias whilst on air to the extent that their commentary doesn't oscillate between denigrating whom ever Wigan happen to be playing and creaming over how good Wigan are. If he can't contain his loyalty and blind passion for Wigan he should jog on and get a job in their marketing team or with their cheer leaders.