Hemmings and Stevenson are complete clowns. As damaging to RL as Eddie Waring was.

I can tell you what non-RL fans think. I work in Edinburgh during the week, and after banging on about RL, one of the other blokes (RU fan) watched the Leeds-Melbourne game. His feedback? "It was great, much better than I thought RL was. But who are those 2 idiots doing the commentary?"

Why are we the only sport in the world who get 'comedy' commentators? It's not like Sky don't take RL seriously, so why persist with these two? What audience research are they doing where people are being positive? They're obviously some Southern marketing types view of what we're like up North, but they annoy me very time they're on, and I get the feeling I'm not alone...

Listen to the Aus commentary on Premier by comparison, and it's enough to make you weep.

Bang on. When you compare it to football, with proper pundits who take the sport extremely serious, and even RU, it really does embarrass us. The whole Baz and Tez thing was the most amateur thing iv ever seen. It was like a children's tv show.

a good comparison is what sky did with cricket. when they first got the rights, they pile the box full of 'colourful' commentators. the allowed boycs to ham it up and used it to create reaction. however, over time they have settled down and now they are back to a more sensible commentary policy.
RL hasnt changed. even the replacements for wiggy and bigot have been selected because of the 'comedic' qualities.
time for RL commentry to grow up and prize good communicators above 'headline' makers. there are plenty of lucid ex players who can be turned into good commentators. another cricket does well is to change the men behind the mike, and use a rotating mix of people covering all the bases.

as regards sunday, eddie was annoying, but stevos insistence of trying chalk off anything that wigan did was even more cringe worthy.

I was going to mention this, but thought I'd had enough of a rant already!

you are correct but sometimes Phil Gould and Ray Warren have their eddie and Stevo moments too...

I think it was the Friday night game "Rabbits" was banging on about a strangled larynx but couldnt be sure whether it was pronounced Lar-in-x or lar-nix....it was a bit excrutiating but at least he can snap out of it and get down to some brilliant commentary.

one thing does bug me about Aus commentary is the love in for Melbourne Storm who are by far and away the most boring team in the world (succesful with it I know) their five drives and a kick out of their half is regularly lauded as the storm "being brilliant at sticking to their processes" and even when Billy slater kicks a bloke in the throat he does nothing wrong any anyones eyes.....

I missed that one, and suppose they all have their moments, but generally they're very good, and when they are joking it mostly comes across as knowledgeable ex-pros having a laugh. Whereas with Eddie & Stevo it's so bloody forced because they're desperately unfunny - they're like when senior managers get up to make a speech with 'funnies' in, and it's just cringe-making. At least you normally only have to suffer that once a year, not every time you turn a match on.

We might as well have Alan Partridge, at least it would be intentionally awful.

See, I'm ranting again.

The presenting team on Sky Sports is a joke. Brian Carney and Phil Clarke are sometimes the only ones who talk any sense and Phil Clarke sometimes struggles with that. I hate watching on Sky.

BBC commentary isn't any better, I prefer Sky to be honest.

That's not entirely surprising, given that you're a Saints fan.

Wellens the best player in the world - when he wasn't even the best full-back in the world?

Every pass Cunningham made - even basic deliveries from the play-the-ball sending Eddie into orgasmic raptures.

Come on, even you lot must have been embarrassed by some of that.

Clarke is terrible at times , give more of the gig to Carney and Wells .

Stevo says 'utilize' about every 10 words or so, it's barely an exaggeration. 'Utilise the dummy runners' it get very, very annoying when they only explanation for a team not clicking in attack is due to this. Also any kick that finds touch when a team is in the lead is deemed as brilliant by Stevo, even if it's a poor kick that went wrong. The Stevoisms were amusing for a while but his commentary could be recorded beforehand and played during the game as he doesn't have any new insights or anything useful to say.

I've started watching a few of the Championship games this year and I must admit the Premier Sports coverage is superb considering the budget. I'm a big fan of the video ref mic that they have explaining the reasons for the decision.

They need to get the message out there: "hey, come on, our commentary team is bobbins". Eddie more so than Stevo IMO.