I do theres something about her.

Isn't that what makes a commentator good?! It p*sses me off no end when Eddie and Stevo spend more time talking about an incident that happened 10 minutes ago than they do talking about the game in front of them (and are often wrong about said incident).

Commentators commentate. Analysers analyse. They aren't there to be controversial.


The only thing I don't like about Woods is that he doesn't sound like he's genuinely enthused by the game, he's just talking about it.
French just can't keep up anymore. It's embarrassing at times how bad he is. And they've given him the Catalans game, where no doubt well hear "Thomas Bosh" said 1000x, as well as the weight of the pack and the address of each players amateur club. Basically completely useless facts as filler.

Isn't being hypercritical what a true fan would do?

Quote JEAN CAPDOUZE="JEAN CAPDOUZE"BBC will televise 2 Challenge Cup matches this weekend: Wigan vs St Helens Saturday at 14.15 on BBC One and Catalans vs Warrington Sunday at at 14.45 on BBC Two. The commentators on BBC One are the superb Dave Woods and the [itoujours stupide[/i Jonathan Davies. The commentators on BBC Two are [ile retraite [/iRay French and [iencore stupide[/i Jonathan Davies. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hpwrq So Wigan vs St Helens has the prestige coverage and Catalans vs Warrington fans are insulted twice. The match is on BBC Two, which is the second channel. And the match is commentated not by the number 1 rugby league commentator in Britain, Dave Woods, but by a very old and sometimes confused man named Ray French along with Davies. We have to ask: why is it happening like this? Is French being asked to work in Perpignan because his name is "French?" He can still give fair analysis after something has happened, but often he cannot follow the fast play, he is sometimes confused about the names of the players, and so he should be only in the post match commentary.'" And you wonder why people consider the French to have a chip on their shoulders...?

Quote JEAN CAPDOUZE="JEAN CAPDOUZE"BBC will televise 2 Challenge Cup matches this weekend: Wigan vs St Helens Saturday at 14.15 on BBC One and Catalans vs Warrington Sunday at at 14.45 on BBC Two. The commentators on BBC One are the superb Dave Woods and the [itoujours stupide[/i Jonathan Davies. The commentators on BBC Two are [ile retraite [/iRay French and [iencore stupide[/i Jonathan Davies. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hpwrq So Wigan vs St Helens has the prestige coverage and Catalans vs Warrington fans are insulted twice. The match is on BBC Two, which is the second channel. And the match is commentated not by the number 1 rugby league commentator in Britain, Dave Woods, but by a very old and sometimes confused man named Ray French along with Davies. We have to ask: why is it happening like this? Is French being asked to work in Perpignan because his name is "French?" He can still give fair analysis after something has happened, but often he cannot follow the fast play, he is sometimes confused about the names of the players, and so he should be only in the post match commentary.'" And you wonder why people consider the French to have a chip on their shoulders...?

Ray French the former Cowley School modern languages teacher?

Some commentators are annoying - granted, but what really grinds my gears is the insistance of both Sky and the BBC to show replys of innocuous play of the balls or clips on the coachs whilst play is still on going. I've lost count the amount of times I've missed a piece of play because I'm looking at the 13th angle of the same knock on from 10 minutes ago.

You are so dumb.



You can't see that you are making my point for me.



Only 9 French born players out of 17 is a joke. The only SL team in France based in the RL heartland with several years in SL and they manage only 9 - with just 8 versus the Giants.

15 of 25 are french....wow! A few more Frenchmen get picked when Catalans play a championship side. Yet when the opposition is more challenging it drops to just 8.

No discernable increase in French players at Catalans over the last 5 years and the best French half back of thelast 10 years has been shoved out on the wing.



Possible a minority of french players in the 17 versus the Wolves. Great news for Ray French, les so for French rugby league.

Yes.

You can't criticise the Catalans when a certain English club in the so called heartlands fielded 11 overseas players against Wigan at the weekend (and had another one injured on the sidelines).

Nonsense. Of course I can. HKR or other clubs fielding 10 or so overseas players is very poor. It does not justify the catalan situation. They have a larger 'legal' cap than all other SL teams and they have virtually no SL competition for French players.

Furthermore they have had very few French players in the 1,6.7, 9 (and ball playing 13) slots. They have been preparing for SL since around 2004 under Steve Deakin.From a whole country how many 'top 6' French SL players aged 19 - 22 have they produced?

Try promoting RL in an area where RU is King and RL has been actively discriminated against for years. They are doing no better or worse than any other club, and they are now attracting 5 figure crowds, something that almost half the sides over here cannot do.

Why do you expect a team to sacrifice on-field success in favour of playing 'local' players? Are there any other Super League clubs that you have these expectations of?

Thanks to the success of Catalans, France's U16's team recently whitewashed England in a series. Last year, France U18's beat Australia, with the majority of the squad playing a year above their age group. There are numerous other young French players contracted to Catalans such as Barthau, Gossard, Pala, Bosquet, Maria, Marginet and others who are more than capable of being very good Super League players, but cannot currently get into a settled Catalans team which is challenging for the double. To expect Catalans to find a place for all these players each week simply because they are French is frankly ridiculous. Maybe if other Super League clubs such as your own were less insular and were willing to look further than your own back yard for talent then there wouldn't be an issue and Catalans could go on developing the sport in their own way, by creating a top-class team with a backbone of French players and world-class imports. To attempt to criticise them for wanting to be successful is absolute stupidity, especially when other clubs ignore the obvious benefits of tapping into the French talent surplus.