Michael Shenton's good.

I seem to remember Jordan Hamea being good for the camera.

What's this obsession with regional accents all about? Are you ashamed of your cultural heritage? Would you rather have players with broad accents locked in the basement like a disfigured child whilst their "intelligent" colleagues represent a predominantly northern sport in sterile, colourless and completely unrepresentative "BBC articulation"?

Seriously, it sounds like you've swallowed one too many bitter jibes served up by the establishment hacks from down south.

The human brain is remarkably good at unraveling the twists and turns of accented speech and ordering it into coherency. If it weren't mankind would doubtless have ended up as just another unremarkable branch of the ever-widening evolutionary tree. This is the reason a film such as "Trainspotting" featuring thick Glaswegian accents can become an international box-office success.

If people living in far-flung locations such as Queensland, Idaho, Quebec and Durban can sit in their local theaters and make sense of Trainspotting I very much doubt people living in the UK watching SKY or the Beeb find the likes of JJB indecipherable and switch off in total disgust.

No, I think the REAL issue here has little to do with highfalutin notions of "casting RL in the best possible light" (which is at best unrepresentative and at worst - downright deception) and is instead far closer to battered child syndrome. At some point in your life you've been the victim of cultural snobbery. So in true if-you-can't-beat'em-join-'em spirit you've decided to become a snob yourself.

They say the first step to recovery is admitting your problem. Learn to be comfortable in your own skin.

The irony in the OP implying that articulation is representative of intelligence.

Implicit within such a ridiculous generalisation is the OP's total lack of intelligence.

Your statement says a lot more about you than JJB's accent does about him....

If only, "err", "um", "yer know", with "the lads giving 110%", whilst "looking for a result" ( does getting hammered 80-0 count as a result? ) , "as I said before" ( you didn't but hey who cares?), the clichés were reduced the I along with may others would not feel as sick as a parrot!

This and your earlier use of the word 'parochial' to try to legitimise your prejudice truly speaks volumes about you.

By 'parochial' you really meant the accent of the North of England. Not even that, really. More the old counties of Lancaster and York. You cite Brian Carney as being acceptable to your aural taste, yet his accent is as strong as anyones. Just that it's no longer acceptable to discriminate against the Irish.

You unwittingly highlight the fact that in these 'enlightened times' that perhaps the last remaining tolerable prejudice is that of against people from these two counties. Try having a go at the accents of scousers, geordies, brummies, glaswegians, cockneys, devonians, the welsh or even the french and you will be assailed by cries of indignation, calling you a near racist. Yet it's fine for you to single us out with the clear inference that Northern = thick.

The Rugby Union broadcasters don't seem to have a problem with post match interviews with either of England's prospective fly halves, nor do they shirk asking many of the Northern coaches for their genuinely expert opinions.

If no-one else is allowed to be discriminated against for anything whatsoever, I think that we need to start fighting back against this bald prejudice a bit more as we will be the only butts of any jokes whatsoever.

Unfortunately people do often display their lack of intelligence and education by just opening their mouths.

You're wrong about the other predominantly working class accents by the way. The vitriol poured on Wayne Rooney is an example. The Scouse accent is still hated in most parts of the country. Indeed it is still a term of abuse on the terraces and in the grandstands of most rugby league grounds.

Be rest assured discrimination against working class people (sometimes by other working class people), whatever their accent, is alive and well in 21st century Britain

You're right. Though I would argue / i find that the discrimination against the others particularly amongst the metrosexuals is more covert.

Agreed (I must admit I had to look up the term Metrosexual first, perhaps betraying my own lack of education )

I believe it is important that you can speak a form of English that others familiar with the Language can understand.

And these players in SL who speak completely indecipherable English are ... who?

Kind of makes one wonder how they could ever have become professional rugby league players in the first place. Do they communicate with teammates using hand gestures? Smoke signals? Cave paintings?

Yeah we need more highbrow presenters like Beau Ryan. The Footy Show had him devouring raw chillies, spoonfuls of vegemite and plain weet-bix. Very highbrow.

I never cease to be surprised by the number of people who have a short-circuit in the connection between READING and COMPREHENDING.

Let's re-examine exactly what was saidThe Aussies are just light years ahead of us in picking out interesting characters for TV. Matthew Johns was a great example until everything kind of turned sour. Beau Ryan is another example of an archetype which is completely alien to SKY TV. As for the Beeb - it's so sour-faced and serious you kind of wonder whether anyone there possesses a sense of humour. [/i

Education, eh?

Being able to communicate with team mates mainly from the same area does not make you articulate and easy to understand to the majority of the English speaking fans does it?

Articulate
"Having or showing the ability to speak fluently and coherently"
"Pronounce (something) clearly and distinctly"

We can start with James Jones-Buchanan, who is utterly unintelligible to me. I cringe every time a TV interviewer mistakenly puts a microphone in front of his face.

James Peacock is not a lot better, though if I concentrate hard I can pick up the drift of his conversation, which is often impossible with JJB.

It is not a matter of being working class. Adrian Morley is much easier to listen to, even though he comes from Salford Quays. (It also helps a little for his appeal to the the TV audience that Adrian Morley has a very pleasant face, and a calmly amiable personality, unlike the other two whom I have mentioned, who thus labour with a double disadvantage).