Ray French and Jonathan Davies

His name is Bill Arthur, however it was Rod Studd commentating.

I like having a ref on the commentary - brings some rationale to the decisions. Cummings knows all of the rules - unlike the majority of the others.
Wells is excellent - I really love the analysis spotting things that we typically don't - often from a couple of plays back. I really rate him.
Carney is good and a more natural / confident presenter.

Phil Clarke irritates me with some banal observations, particularly stats related

I thought Terry O did well on the Leigh / Salford match and I think he adds something.
Barry Mac is less used and I've no strong view

That leaves Eddie and Stevo. The face of RL to many.

Knowledgable but sometimes plain wrong.
Eddie has some mileage left and he is a good presenter on the whole.
Stevo is a bit past his sell-buy date I'm afraid and doesn't add the technical insight that I think is needed for a back up man, given that Eddie is someone who loves the game but hasn't played at a top level. Jon Wells could do that job, or Brian Carney.

Brian Carney and Barrie Mac did a good job on Leigh v Salford.

Cummins may well be clued up as an ex ref but he is monotone and sounds miserable. He needs to come across happy and share in a joke.

Theres nothing wrong with Phil Clarke, he is a master among men

bator

added for accuracy

Dave Woods should get the gig

Barrie Mac is sure to get one position which Stevo would normally do.
Probably Bill Arthur for Eddie but if Dave Woods could be poached from the BBC he would be an ideal replacement.

I think Dave Woods and Barrie Mac would work very well.

I still can't understand why Cummings is part of the commentary team just providing a critique of every decision.

Total waste of time and completely negative

Hopefully there is only room for Barrie and not Terry in a new shake-up

Both way past their sell by date as a lot of TV sports commentators are.

Eddie clearly loves the game but is inarticulate and asks banal questions at times when searching ones are needed especially to RFL officials.

Stevo is just an idiot who goes whatever his first opinion is even if there is conclusive proof of the opposite.

We want commentators who give a passionate but unbiased view of the game.

Of those we have seen I think Rod Studd is easily the best commentator and Carney would make the best frontman (like someone else on here said though he needs to take himself less seriously most of the time). Like a lot of others have said Jon Wells needs to be utilised much more he is excellent. I still fundamentally like Clarkey who is passionate about our sport and though has every right to be Wigan biased is nowhere near as bad as the two idiots. He just needs to get away from the obsession of the stats. I would also use Tony Rea more.

The problem will be like all other sports once the decision is made that will be it. Good or bad that's what we will get for some time to come.

I've not heard anywhere that they are going to be stepping down.

They do tend to grate on people, but as someone said, they have probably forgotten more about the game than a lot of people know about it on here.

The thing what gets me about the coverage is the amount of people that speak during the game; you've got Eddie and Stevo commentating, then Phil Clarke chimes in with his stats, then Stuart Cummings gets involved, and then Brian Carney.

Another bug bear of mine is the way they always focus on the negative; "oh that should have been a penalty", "he could have been penalised for that", "that's a professional foul, should be a yellow card" etc.

The set up IMO should be as follows:

Presenter: Hemmings or Carney
Commentators: Arthur & Stevo/Wells (or if Stevo retires, replace with Wells)
Analysis: Phil Clarke

Cummings should only be used after tries scored when the VR is checking things; or every 20 minutes just ask him how he things the ref is performing. At the moment, during practically every set they will speak to Cummings. He doesn't need that much input. Some of the stuff he says is good, but most of the time he's defending the referee to the hilt even if the ref screws up.

At half time get either Carney or Wells to do the HT analysis along with either Terry or Barry (3 people max)

Some people have been looking at alternatives such as Vossy, Dave Woods, Jon Champion etc. I doubt Champion will do it as he seems to do a bit of RU highlights, along with his ESPN work on football.

Dave Woods could be a good shout, he does CC for BBC but they will be losing the rights soon. Vossy wouldn't be cheap, but from his commentary, he sounds similar to Stevo as in he can go off on a tangent talking about other stuff rather than what's going on in front of them. Noble could be an option, and maybe even Robbie Paul.

Rod Studd does commentate but he's been doing a lot of darts recently, and I think he's trying to commentate in the mould of Sid Waddell (chatting crap most of the time, going from low pitch commentating to hyper high pitch)

Will be interesting to see what Sky do if it is true that they are "retiring" soon.

What's Cull up to nowadays?

i like the jon champion call, however i associate his voice with very quietly produced challenge cup matches.

I like carney as well, at times he's very good, however the one bug bear i have with him, is when he trips over one single word, he ends up sounding like a complete tosspot trying to correct himself and its incredibly noticeable.

Didn't Stevo sign a long term contract last year?

I can never understand how people say a with a World Cup winners medal and the biggest memorabilia collection in the sport knows nothing about RL.

As Wire x3 alluded to we see their TV personas, which rightly or wrongly are designed to entertain the casual viewer. I know a lot of people who could point out Stevo in a crowd, but wouldn't be able to name a single player.