Why do we need a commentary?

I remember some years ago you could watch the game with just the stadium sound and that was excellent. Pity they don't offer the service now.

Commentary is not very important if you already know the game, however if you are a more casual viewer then commentary is very important in helping to follow the game albeit on a simplified basis.

The Sky team are actually very good at that, the dumbing down that Eddie and Stevo do may infuriate heartland viewers, but they will tune in anyway.

Andrew Voss comes from a market where there is a wider knowledge of the game. In Sky's market the comms have to dumb down. The fact that SL gets better viewing figures than Union shows how well Eddie, Stevo et all actually do.

I wouldn't put that down to the commentators. I would imagine the neutral viewer would rather watch League as its easier to understand, more exciting and less stop-start.

Familiarity breeds contempt; time for a long overdue change.

I'd be happy to see Voss brought in to replace Eddie - he has a likeable persona and is a knowledgeable and relaxed broadcaster. Replace Stevo with a player of a) more recent pedigree and b) a new set of clichés. I like Carney, although I'm sure there are other candidates.

Commentary is not very important..hahahaha.. 99.9% of so called 'professional' commentators are under the impression they do a good job because they tend to hold down a job for an eon, the art has pretty much died a death, even with modern technology integrating into sport commentators fail, time & time again, both on radio & on TV. Some are so lacking in essential areas of communication we end up with dross, some just end up not giving a flying one about the job and some are just not able to grasp what is going on either quick enough or don't have the technical know-how to convey what is happening properly. That's actually a pretty sad indicment tbh...

The art of good commentating (& there are relatively very very few top notch sports commentators anywhere in the English speaking world and none within UK RL circles at this moment in time...) is describing the events in a way that flows, grasps the essence of it, that is not only balanced but informs with knowledgeable understanding the sometimes obvious (As this carries the listener/viewer from one part of the game to another) and the intricate nouances of the activity itself.
It needs to be the right balance of enough about the action without distracting the discerning viewer/fan whilst interjecting with essentiali/informative factoids at appropriate times (Something French could never do in a month of Sundays) and be able to know when to directly communicate/interact with co-commentators/summerisers at critical points (Woods is actually pretty good at this for the most part)
It has to be a complete symbiosis of commentator and event so you actually really don't notice the commentator, they ARE a part of the action as you would be seeing it.

COMMENTATING IS THE WHOLE ACT, if you think that commentating is purely describing the physical act of say X player passing to Y player or A player tackling B player and IS NOT VERY IMPORTANT then you have ZERO grasp of what commentating actually means..

Personally, I don't see what Phil Clarke offers that the work experience boy at Opta couldn't.

It's one thing to regurgitate stats, it's another to add some meaningful insight to it. I don't really see much of the latter.

"Oh, Wigan have had a lot of play the balls near to the opposition posts; that'll explain why they've scored three tries." Cheers Phil.

Wouldn't be fussed if Clarke got the boot although I think there is value in game analysis. That said, Clarke's graphics depicting areas of the field where tackles were made are pretty pointless IMO. I might not have known that Warrington played the ball precisely 40 times in the Saints 20 but I would have a pretty fair notion that they enjoyed the best of the territory and the possession. There's so much more that could be done with his slot to make it more relevant and interesting.

That said, if the BBC ditched Davies I'd happily accept the other of the TV commentators for the rest of my life.

Clarke offers nothing. The other commentators seem to get annoyed with him at times.

Even Wigan fans find him cringing

Clarke is bonkers.

He says some really crazy things at times. He seems to thrive on trying to be prophetic with unlikely predictions.

Team A are 22 - 0 up, 50 minutes in. But team B are getting a couple penalties and abit of field position. Cue clarke:

''I THINK eddeh, that if team b scores next, they will win the game. They've had 3 times as few play the balls as team a, but if that turns around, they have the fire power to go on and win. I THINK eddeh...''

Final score, 32-4 Team a.

Cheers phil.

At times I cant be bothered to listen too closely to what Clarky says but at other times he is OK.

What I do like is when (mainly after Stevo has said something dumb - regular occurrence?) he suggests an alternative to what the commentators have said and is usually correct.

In Stevo's case I do wish he would admit when he clearly gets something wrong and not continue to ramble on about a clear mistake - usually one where the rest of the commentary team have accepted the ref's decision.

Search 'Lee Crooks try' on that video site.

That guy needs air time. Comical.

Pretty much this, although I do prefer Vossy, at least part of this is just because he's fresh again having been out of the game for a while (even so he still got some hate from Aussies more used to him). Having one set of commentators for an extended period of time will always get stale, unless there's something else to contrast them with. I'd imagine Stevo and Eddie would get much less hate if they alternated with other commentators as suggested here.

Part of the problem for Hemmings and co is that they have to commentate a lot of awful games. As Voss said himself, it is easy to call a good game. I have noticed on twitter that you rarely hear a complaint about commentary following a good contest, however when Huddersfield hammer Hull in a play off game you never hear the end of it.

I notice that Andrew Voss has indicated on Twitter that he would consider commentating on Super League if he received an offer.

I like others on Twitter and other social media have contacted Sky to ask if this would be a possibility. Might be a long shot but if you feel like myself that Eddie and Stevo have become stale then do send them an email. I believe Voss would do wonders for the presentation of the game on Sky.

Surely only if you believed his nonsense to start with?

I remember years ago seeing the "highlights" of some Yawnion international (on the Beeb of course) during which some heaving mass of mud-covered bodies rolled about interminably near a try line and eventually collapsed over it. The ball was totally invisible to all but a couple of flab-warriors in the middle of the heaving mass but somehow the referee decided that a try had been scored. According to McLaren, it was "a magnificent score".

What gets me is the number of people used in RL matches on tv. During the WC Final you had your 3 BBC people in Mark Chapman, Dave Woods and Tanya Arnold. Added to that you had SIX RL people in Jamie Peacock, Sam Burgess, Robbie Hunter Paul, Eorl Crabtree, Brian Noble & Jonathan Davies. That's NINE people to bring you coverage, just overkill.

Sky does similar, you had games last year when you had Eddie and Stevo plus Clarke, then Carney chipping in when he could, plus occasional comments from the studio guest for the night, and to top it off Stuart Cummings to discuss any referee decisions.

It's gone OTT. Even in football I don't see that many. The only sport that has that many voices during a match is cricket but they at least have to fill 8 hours or so of tv, not 2 & half hours.

Only contender for me for the next WC is Cas's own Mick Morgan https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=451340698309710

Only contender for me for the next WC is Cas's own Mick Morgan https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=451340698309710

Quote ="Clearwing"Only contender for me for the next WC is Cas's own Mick Morgan https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=451340698309710 '" I honestly didn't understand a word that guy said.

Quote ="Clearwing"Only contender for me for the next WC is Cas's own Mick Morgan https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=451340698309710 '" I honestly didn't understand a word that guy said.

Quote ="Clearwing"Only contender for me for the next WC is Cas's own Mick Morgan https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=451340698309710 '" So long as he is not biased he will do for me.

Quote ="Clearwing"Only contender for me for the next WC is Cas's own Mick Morgan https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=451340698309710 '" So long as he is not biased he will do for me.

Funniest thing I've seen in a long while, he's great. Watched a few of clips with him commentating, I like the way he uses nicknames for players that only he knows

He referred to Luke Dorn as "a poacher".....Luke has his own song now based around that name