100 % agree..............there will have been people watching that game who may not have seen a game before, why not explain to them what's happening.

Only me who likes stevo then? cant help but think he reads these forums i always laugh when i hear him try and make sure he says his "chip over the top" line at least once a game. Eddie is the problem the mistakes he makes it was only last week he was calling Huddersfield Saints. I remember seeing Jeff Stelling doing some Rugby league work before he was big we should try and get somebody like him doing it , Stevo does a bearable job he just needs a decent lead commentator beside him.

Eddie is awful. What tickled me was how he hept saying "for those tuning in expecting to see football...", as if the world and his wife doesn't know that the Premier League ended 8 days previously! I don't mind Stevo as much as his passion and enthusiasm comes through very well but his commentary pretty much consists of his own archaic catchphrases that he trots out whenever they're remotely relevant to the game, and sometimes when they aren't, and getting almost every video ref decision wrong

Thought the origin coverage was sh*te as well.

Might watch game 2 online and try and find an Aussie presentation.

Just watching Boots n All and he has asked Paul Cullen what Widnes have done for Michael Witt to be out all season. As he plays for London I'm not sure they'll care.

thought Wells and McRae did a good job,, and Carney much better reading the team sheets than Barry Mc and Terry O

Stevo bingo anyone?

Oh absolutely, perish the thought that anyone fairly new to the game might be watching, if they are then fsck 'em, I say, why should we pander to these newbies eh?


But it's not like the commentary was an 80 minute primer though, is it? 98% of it was just match commentary, don't know what you're moaning about.


Nonsense. Stop being so precious. What would you prefer, a paean of praise for soccer every 5 minutes? And if any soccer viewer doesn't appreciate the difference between the sprawling, "I'm-in-agony-and-about-to-die" antics on the football field, then that would be blind from birth ones. Good on Eddie for bigging our players and our game up, as well as for very fairly and rightly casting aspersions on the dishonest rolling about tactics that are such a feature of many soccer games.

And the thought of some football fan indignantly switching off in some fit of faux insulted indignation really is funny. Honest, you needn't worry about this.

As for the Aussie NRL commentaries, honestly these are different, because they are different commentators, but I don't see how you can say they are any better. The best commentary is one that doesn't grate, and I think Eddie does a decent enough job. Comparing him with Ray Warren in his prime is a bit of a pointless exercise. What next - David Gower isn't as good as John Arlott?

Stevo's buffoon impersonation is, though, well past its sell-by, all he ever does is quote from his compendium of cliches. It must be what Sky want - they can hardly miss it. But they do seem to be successfully watering him down at times with others chiming in who are less annoying. The only thing I'm not sure of is whether Stevo is being bad and annoying on purpose, or whether he thinks his comments add something. At any rate, he is by no means the main commentator, that's Eddie, and he's OK.

OK there's plenty moaning going on but not many credible suggestions.

How would YOU present it, and who would you have doing what jobs out of the CURRENT crop of RL presenters/pundits/commentators in the UK?

Main Commentators : Barrie Mcdermott/Brian Carney
Analyst : John Kear
Touchline Reporter : Southern Guy (Can't remember his name...)

I prefer Bill Arthur's commentary to anyone else's. I'd like to see Eddie as studio anchor, Arthur as main commentator, Carney pitchside and a rotation of McRae, McDermott et al as pundits. I'd also like to see Stevo, Clarke and Wells dropped down a fooking mineshaft.

"You've got to have fire in your belly and ice in your mind and if you have too much fire in your belly it will melt the ice in your mind" is the best thing i've ever heard on sky sports that's my only reason for wanting Barrie