Yeah you could tell when he first got the gig he didn't know that much about RL but has done his homework on it. Pretty similar to Clare Balding before him.

So do I. He's the first commentator who unlike Waring, takes the game seriously and unlike French is able to explain it articulately. Woods is from Wigan, and he is a proper broadcaster. Many moons ago he used to present the Breakfast programme on Radio Leeds.

BBC's coverage used to be dreadful with uninterested anchors and pundits, Eddie Waring-style commentary, amateurish production values and camera crews/editors who clearly had limited experience of the sport and were more used to filming RU (and so missed most of the action). In the past 5 or so years it has improved massively, meanwhile Sky's coverage has fallen off a cliff. Watching a game on Sky and the BBC is like watching a different sport these days, I've recently cancelled Sky Sports after 15 years because their coverage is just unwatchable at present.

I really like Chappers as a presenter. I remember him hosting a show on 5live over New year in 2011 which was a sporting review of the year. AFAIK this was before he had presented RL for the beeb. During the show the guests and presenters had to pick their sporting highlight of the year. Didn't expect RL to get a mention but Chapman selected Rob Burrows try against Saints in the GF as his highlight of the year. Coming from someone who hosts a show covering as many sports as he does that was some accolade.

Isn't that just the technology though? After all you could call Ray French many things, but not uninterested. And Clare Balding was an excellent anchor, who though initially conscripted in to presenting RL, said she had come to love and respect the game and its players.
As for Union, I think the Beeb's coverage of that sport was just as pedestrian and out of touch as their coverage of RL. In the past it seems to me the only sport they really gave some thought to was soccer, and they covered Rugby (both codes) as though it were soccer. They lost cricket, initially to C4 because their coverage was so poor.
But in the eighties and nineties RL fans used to praise Sky's coverage to, erm the skies. Is it that coverage has moved on and Sky haven't? How does their coverage of soccer compare with the of RL? I certainly think that those who run cricket are kicking themselves for jumping into bed with Sky.

The glue that keeps the broadcast together is the always superb David Woods. He is beyond excellent. David Woods' passion exudes love for the game. His educated accent links the game with the economically important middle and upper classes of Britain.

David Woods' talent would shine even more strongly if he was not burdened with the presence of the Welsh peanut brain Jonathan Davies, and the inarticulate and unintelligible James Peacock.

At least the team is sometimes intellectually reinforced by the poetry reading John Wilkin.

Remove Davies and Peacock and the commentary team becomes sheer perfection.