If I were being mischievous, I might suggest that a certain Sky pundit has an issue with the way a certain match official controlled a recent semi-final involving a former club of his.

Fate just happened to present him with a perfect opportunity to disect the same official's performance in the finest detail.

Interestingly during the Wire Hull game on Saturday, following Westerman's attempted decapitation of a Wire player (which got zero postings on the WIgan board) Clarke referred back to the McGuire tackle & suggested it as a candidate for a 10 minute spell of reflection, but not the Fakir ones.

Wasn't Friday's match official announcement made before Clarke could perform his hatchet job on Thaler?

Apparently it's ok to take out Wire players - both Thaler and Silverwood call it a 'knock on'.... That's why, so as not to be left out, Grix took out Myler, and in the game at Wigan earlier this year, Westwood knocked out Waterhouse !

If Wigan were to win anything that Sky were actually interested in there would be meltdown in the commentary box.

The sky team is gash. Sooner that stevo and Eddie go the better for me, regardless of who is playing they just ruin the games for me

They should stop calling it boots n all an just call it warriors world as it is 90% about them with that idiot clarke doing the stats all about how badly done to they are especially when playing the rhinos.

Clarke should be told to cool on the wigan crap and concentrate on being impartial, although not much chance of that !!

Why not introduce the Stats - Fight of the night.

Clarkey takes on other commentators with team bias.... so basically a nice bit of biff with Barrie Mac......should sort Phil out

It's good to see that his margin meter was a big success

Ah the margin meter. How life moves on, you can't hinder progress can ya

It was such a success it has been souped up and moved to Watchdog on BBC 1. Matt Allbright is the new owner and has rechristened it the crook-o-meter or something. Unfortunately for Matt last night, it told him who the crook was but couldn't predict that he would dowse Matt in a bottle of pi££ as he waited outside the small claims court for the villain.

"thanks eddie"

what a tool

I think sky should keep them on as presenters at the start of the show if they have to but it needs new commentators.

their style is so outdated and boring now.you only have to look on other threads where people mock the constant repeat of phrases with the stevoism bingo cards etc.. Brian Carney and AN Other would improve things no end.

And Phil Clarke, dont get me started!

Phil Clark Chats B0ll0ck$ and his Stats are created to make you believe his Biased Wigan G@sh. Needs a Sl@p from Big B@z!

Got to say I didn't think it was as bad or biased as some have implied on here. The 50/50's thing was daft though, and a little strange as I'd never seen it before. Also it appeared to include a 50/50 call (the burrow pass forward/not forward) that Clarke seemed to think was a correct decision.
I think everyone can agree that Peacock was offside/not square but it made no mention of the Fakir tackles or the numerous incidents of Catalans holding down, or Catalans offside on their own line.
Also for Clarke to suggest he was surprised McGuire wasn't sinbinned is incredibly poor and unprofessional from Clarke. Someone in his position should know that players can't be sinbinned for a single high tackle. In fact I'm sure he's mentioned it himself during the season so I'm sure he knows it himself.

I quite like the idea of Clarke using stats to show how things like possession, completion, territory etc play an important part of a game, but instead of a half-assed attempt with colours and the same format for every game he should go into more detail on the games and show what effect these things have, and break down a game.
Boots n All is crying out for Tony Rea's analysis back!

clarke just likes to be off the wall sometimes.

In his commentary, it's like he wants to be some all knowing prophet with crazy predictions or statements

Like he'll just suddenly butt in with something, let's say widnes are 20-0 down

''You know eddeh, I THINK eddeh, that if widnes score next, they will win this game eddeh, their play the balls have 4.5% faster in the last 5 minutes and this indicates they have turned the momentum of the entire game''

Then everyone at home is just looking at each other thinking ''err, ok thanks for that phill''

This.

I used to really enjoy Tony Rea's match analysis, the Clarke stattastic bollox is a poor substitute.

Quote ="Him"Got to say I didn't think it was as bad or biased as some have implied on here. The 50/50's thing was daft though, and a little strange as I'd never seen it before. Also it appeared to include a 50/50 call (the burrow pass forward/not forward) that Clarke seemed to think was a correct decision. I think everyone can agree that Peacock was offside/not square but it made no mention of the Fakir tackles or the numerous incidents of Catalans holding down, or Catalans offside on their own line. Also for Clarke to suggest he was surprised McGuire wasn't sinbinned is incredibly poor and unprofessional from Clarke. Someone in his position should know that players can't be sinbinned for a single high tackle. In fact I'm sure he's mentioned it himself during the season so I'm sure he knows it himself. '" Jeez, you talk some reet nonsense sometimes: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=537922&tsmp=1348821073&start=18 I think I've figured out the definition of a 50:50 now - it's basically everything Leeds do.

Quote ="Him"Got to say I didn't think it was as bad or biased as some have implied on here. The 50/50's thing was daft though, and a little strange as I'd never seen it before. Also it appeared to include a 50/50 call (the burrow pass forward/not forward) that Clarke seemed to think was a correct decision. I think everyone can agree that Peacock was offside/not square but it made no mention of the Fakir tackles or the numerous incidents of Catalans holding down, or Catalans offside on their own line. Also for Clarke to suggest he was surprised McGuire wasn't sinbinned is incredibly poor and unprofessional from Clarke. Someone in his position should know that players can't be sinbinned for a single high tackle. In fact I'm sure he's mentioned it himself during the season so I'm sure he knows it himself. '" Jeez, you talk some reet nonsense sometimes: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=537922&tsmp=1348821073&start=18 I think I've figured out the definition of a 50:50 now - it's basically everything Leeds do.

Surely it can only be a matter of time before the accent gods strike.

Not overly convinced by the bias argument (except Clarke, who is, after all, a fairly died in't' wool lancastrian). I am, however, convinced that they're useless, so I don't watch any of their shows, and if I watch the match coverage, I do so with the sound down. Sometimes with the radio on, sometimes just with some music. So they can be as biased as they want really, I'd only know from reading it on here.

I would like to set Ben Goldacre on Phil Clarke's mis-use of statistics... It goes to show how misleading they can be when left in the hands of a total imbecile.

For those who watch Boots N All, you get what you deserve

TERRIBLE programme

Yup. It blows.

For those who watch it but don't enjoy it. Simply: don't.

As with all BS - Stats are stats ..... With half an hours preparation they can be manipulated to support any view the presenter wants them to support..... So, given Clarkeys allegiance to the Pie Torturers, what did Sky think he would do with the slot?

I agree for balance he should have, but maybe it was because the Cats didn’t win and Leeds did. Just because he was born in Wigan and played for them he’s still a dick, what happened to his swingometer gizmo he spent so much time explaining to everybody?

It turned out to be a pile of s**t.

Undeterred, he has apparently replaced it with some sort of Phil's-opinion-on-decisions-o-meter.