I watched the Rabbitos v Roosters match on Sky a few days ago and the commentary was exhilarating. The enthusiastic, intelligent and original comments really enhanced some thrilling rugby.
Then...
I watched Wigan v Wakefield!
The commentary was so mundane, repetitive, and quite frankly, devoid of basic English.
One commentator said, “See the vision what he’s got.”
It reminded me of Morecambe and Wise when they discussed the plays ‘what he wrote’.
This isn’t the first time I’ve cringed at such commentary. It wouldn’t be too bad if the commentator had a good voice, was informative, exciting and varied his comments.
I will say that Brian Carney does an excellent job as anchorman.

Did Terry O'Connor get stiffed by Wigan when he left the club? Doesn't half sound like he bears a grudge against Wigan. Anti-Wigan bias aside. He's an awful commentator.

They seem to be under orders to support whoever's the underdog, which at least is an improvement on Eddie Hemmings, who basically supported St Helens, but it still comes over as rank amateurism.

They're supposed to be neutral, and should sound it.

Terry O'Connor isn't a commentator he's a summeriser, a pretty awful one at that.
We seem stuck for quality commentators but not summerisers. Carney is good although he's now used as an anchor. Wells is good and Wilkin is excellent, when used Shenton is very good as well. Why SKY persist with "Baz and Tez" when there are so many better alternatives I don't know. They had their comedy slot on Boots n All years ago and have gone backwards since.

As for commentators, I quite like Bill Arthur but they need to bring in quality people alongside. There are folk about on local radio and club tv, I do think they could do a lot better than than current talkers!

Give me Hemmings any day or the week over what’s there now

Terrible the lot of them. Terry and Baz in particular.

They often just stop mid sentence and start a new one.

Phrases often heard like 'Charnley with his speed and quickness'

He says, “He done good.”
Well, at least he doesn’t say, “Him done good.”

Wells is a weird one, there's a lot of people who think he talks a lot of sense, and theres a lot of people who think he talks a lot of e, weirdly it seems to be the people that like 'baz n tez' who seem threatened by wells being able to actually put a decent sentence together.

Personally i like him, whether he should be present and pitchside at the moment observing every other team and hearing everyones calls and set ups whilst he works for cas is another matter.

Always surprises me that they dont get more NRL/Aussie players as guests on there, they've all been media trained and are generally good value to listen to. PLus i've got a guilty pleasure of hearing ocker accents, they're like scottish bank notes, you've never seen (heard) two the same.

It's working really well for them



I quite like Jon Wells and I used to enjoy the touch screen stuff.

Wells and Carney are great. The rest can go.

I agree about Wells he is more professional than O'Connor Or McDermott they should have gone with Eddie and Stevo. Tony Rea is a good co presenter, Chris Warren was good as a commentator and presenter. Wilkin is a good assessor of a game and would be a good fit for SKY. Carney, Wells and Wilkin would be a good team.

I agree about Wells he is more professional than O'Connor Or McDermott they should have gone with Eddie and Stevo. Tony Rea is a good co presenter, Chris Warren was good as a commentator and presenter. Wilkin is a good assessor of a game and would be a good fit for SKY. Carney, Wells and Wilkin would be a good team.

Watched the games last week, one of the commentators wants to learn how to pronounce the players names. (Its not the first time its happened).
He kept saying "Marmo" and Matangi. There's no "R" in Mamo & no "N" in Matagi.
Also he should get his facts correct. In the Wigan / Wakefield game he kept saying that Wakefield were bottom of the league, but at the time of the game HKR were bottom.

matagi is correct, in polynesian/samoan dialect a G is pronounced as a 'ng' sound.

Cheers for that. You learn something new everyday.

Hence Joe Vagana being pronounced VaNgana

This is quite interesting...

In Samoan, the letter G is pronounced as though there is an N before that G, so Ulugia is pronounced UluNGia, Vagana is pronounced VaNGana.

Tongan pronunciation is easier but many disregard the vowels at the end of names. Therefore, Sekope should sound like Sekop-eh, not Sekop-ee.

In Maori, the most common mistake is the pronunciation of words and names starting with the letters Wh, which sounds like F. Not a problem for rugby commentators, but in the NRL Manly's Dean Whare (Far-ay) has had to make it known.

In the Fijian language things get a bit trickier. What is written as C is pronounced as Th, while Qs should sound like Ng. So Rokocoko is pronounced RokoTHoko, and Tuqiri is pronounced TuNGiri.

well, funnily enough it was INGA the winger that first brought this to my attention since there wasn't an N in his first name Va'aigia

I always just assumed he had the name "inga" somewhere in the middle of his forename. I thought the apostrophe in Va'aigia perhaps hid another 20 letters. Your version seems correct, but i prefer mine.

So has everyone been pronouncing Lote Tuquiri's name wrong all this time and it should be Lote Tungiri?

I always assumed it was due to his surname which is pronounced Tu-inga-mala rather than his forename. It could be either or both I suppose.

Some names from this part of the world have similar pronunciation trip hazards too like the 'mh' in celtic gaelic names such as Niamh and Mhairie which is pronounced as 'v' or the Scots name Menzies (pronounced Mingis) due to a no longer used letter in the Scots alphabet that is today written as 'nz' but is still pronounced.

I will admit that tonight, so far, they are almost as bad as Eddie was.

The difference is that Eddie was bad because he was biased. Tez and Baz are bad because they're thick.

They completely bull the most random stats up...example tonight “What a strike rate...54 tries in 90-odd games” referring to Grace, as though its some sort of extra-ordinary feat of brilliance. Personally, I’d say a fairly standard return for a winger in the top 4 teams (not to discredit his all round game as he’s clearly a talented lad).

Yeah for a winger at the best side in the comp during his 90 odd games, that is terrible.

According to Baz, he is being compared to Martin Offiah

And only Baz, presumably.

They don't half talk some drivel.

As the OP said, listen to the commentary on NRL games, and it enhances your enjoyment of the match. With SL games, I'm always tempted to mute it and do without.