Even JD was positive this weekend. "Brilliant!, brilliant!" he said umpteen times.

You may be thinking of Adrian Durham off Talk Sport, he is a Hull FC fan due to watching them whilst at Hull Uni.

Overall, I find it easier to watch; Chapman is a more polished broadcaster than Sky have been able to magic up, and Dave Woods, although a tad OTT at times, has a clear love for the game - which is infectious.

I could live without Nobby trying to sound more intelligent than he actually is and talking himself into narrative cul-de-sacs a la Phil Clarke, and I find Peacock a bit dour; Davies makes some very good technical insights, but sometimes he seems to have got out of bed on the wrong side and is very negative. And since its now mandatory to have some female input - Tanya Arnold is in a different league to Angela Powers, who comes over on Sky as an enthusiastic but ill-informed Mum at an amateur game.

Sound issues aside, and without the utterly pointless RHP running around like an annoying wasp, the coverage is good - much better than Sky.

Chapman went to Hull Uni as well and loves rugby league

thing is with davies , you never see him or hear of him apart from once a year on the bbc.. rest of time hes prob working for rugby union!

think he called a player jonny wilkin yesteday!!

Think BBC are miles better than Sky. Would be good to see Carney and Wells involved in the BBC coverage though, think they would both come across really to a larger audience.

He is but so is Mark Chapman. He's mentioned a few times on Twitter that he's a Hull supporter and has been for over 20 years, also since Uni.

Radford's remarks comparing Misi Taulapapa's early shot on Shaul were way off the mark. He also tacitly slagged off our best ref at the end of the game. IMO he should never get another chance. His team had three in the bin in this game and finished at Fev with 9 players on. This sort of thing IMO reflects upon the coach.

I don't have Sky (personal reasons to do with Murdoch) but I remember when they first started covering RL those watching raved about their coverage compared to the Beeb.
Is Sky's coverage of other sports better than the Beeb's? If it is why do we get inferior coverage of our sport. When you see adverts for SKY Sports, it's never SL they're promoting, but soccer or cricket or Union. They've clearly fallen out of love with RL. Why can't the RFL find another willing broadcasters to buy the contract off SKY? Maybe SKY would sell cheap?

good for their summer schedules but I agree, they've lost interest.
on an aside I love Dave woods commentary.

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.