It was hardly unexpected either was it? And the suggestion that Ryan Hampshire would now be looking for a big game because of the announcement. Utter drivel from them last night.

As I won't be attending again tonight due to illness, I'm going to play 'Tomkins bingo' and count how often he is mentioned in the commentary.

My guess is 12. Anyone else want to play?

Oooh I'm going for 17. I don't think Eddie & Phil will have slept since they heard the news.

I'm going with Pi to 34,0000 decimal places

No, no, Loz.

Tomkins is going with Pie. Eddie mentioned it last night, I think.

The entire Sky team should have this beaten into them:
From the late great Richie Benaud:
"Put your brain into gear and if you can add to what’s on the screen then do it, otherwise shut up."

Their total lack of technical knowledge about the game never ceases to amaze me.

Is it true that Samkins is on his way back to Wigan?
Wow, never saw that coming.
Was it mentioned during last night's game?

If they are retiring, the major upside is not having to listen to them ing off to Sam Tomkins every time Wigan are on Sky.

That's the thing that amazes me too.

For ex-players with so many international appearances to their name, their grasp of basic techniques, patterns of play and strategies is alarming.

Every try scored out wide is because the opposite winger "was in no-man's land" as an example.

Only Wells seems to have any input of merit from a technical perspective.

I think that's partly to do with how much the game has changed since Stevo's day. The game is different to how it was played back at the start of SL and I've always thought you should have fresh faces every so often in the commentary/pundit box with recent history of playing the sport. It's no coincidence that the two most liked (Wells and Carney) are the most recently retired players. Similar with football, Gary Neville played the game recently, not some guy who was playing in the 80's trying to compare his day to the modern game. And Neville has really won fans over with his punditry even those who hated him as a player.

This annoys me most about sky's coverage of rl, I've only properly watched cricket for the past couple of years but feel comfortable following the game re the commentary because it's informative and straight forward if I was a newcomer to rugby league I don't think I could say the same listening to Eddie and Stevo.

Firstly, I'm no Stevo fan but think people are being a bit unfair here (never thought I'd type that sentence). Those questioning his knowledge are coming from a very knowledgeable place, I.e. most of you lot watch games week in week out.

What Stevo does is create and environment where newcomers can pick up the basics. I've watched games with many mates who aren't even what you would call casual fans and they really take to his energy and 'colour' commentating.

He provides a type of commentary you don't get in football. Whether that's good or bad is up to you but slamming someone for not digging into the real detail of tactics when 90% of it would be lost on many members of a growing audience misses a vital point.

Careful what you wish for, chances are we will be listening to Clarke crack one out on his spreadsheet and posters of Wane soon.

I don't think Stevo is ignorant of the modern game but I think the whole format of "mates ribbing each other" isn't enough, listen to the other major sports football,union and cricket there's still a lightness of touch to the commentary but the basics of explaining what's going on the pitch are key.

Sadly we'll still be stuck with the rest of the Wigan mafia burning through the kleenex , in fact expect it to be mentioned more than once tonight ..