Whats up, don't you want to be watching the National Kabbadi league, or the womens netball classic from Sunderland YMCA sports hall?

I can't get enough of seeing re-runs of Arsenal v Chelsea from 2012! or Spanish games

To be honest i was looking through all the SKY sports channels up until saturday and apart from live super league there is absolutely nothing that i would want to watch.

think i'll save my money now. why they can't have a package that you can tailor yourself and pay for what you watch rather than everyone having to pay to cover F1 and Premier league football.

I just wish the RFL would just F€CK Sky right off & see what they can get from Premier Sports.
Prem Sports used to do a deal when they showed Championship RL, sign up & name your Championship team who then get £10 of your subscription fees.

If they were smart, they could have 'nearly' every Rugby fan this side of the hemisphere tied in to a deal.
In any case NRL knocks SL into a cocked hat.

Why are there so many commentators? Do you know any other sports where there are 5 or 6 people competing to talk at the same time?

Surely I'm also not the only one who doesn't need Stuart Cummings to tell me whether someone has knocked on or not.

Is there any way to automatically mute the sound whilst O'Connor is talking? Surely nobody believes he deserves to be a TV commentator? But I guess at least one person at Sky must.

Agreed.

I think SC is fulfilling a role that isn't needed.

The commentators have opinions on decisions. He's meant to provide the referee's angle on it but most of the time he's wrong, ambiguous or just non-committal. Doesn't add anything IMO.

Eddie, Barrie, Tez and O'Connor fighting to be heard, with Phil Clarke butting in about the Wigan game - it was like listening to a group of blokes arguing in a pub; it's baffling why they think we need so many voices calling what is, in all fairness, a relatively simple game.

At least Rod Studd was at the Darts last night, one less annoying voice to put with. If only he would stay away from RL all together.

And I forgot Bill Arthur, with his garbled messages from pitch-side!

I would have thought that Sky would sort this mess out, if for no other reason than to save money - there are hordes of people on the commentary gravy train, most of whom are totally superfluous; give the whole gig to Carney and Wells next year, and have ex players in for meaningful analysis; more clarity, less clutter and an end to the painful banter of the current set-up.

Last night seemed particularly bad with seemingly endless yapping from the commentary team, especially when the ref is miked up and talking to his touchjudges ,and/or players and all you can hear is baz & tez yapping away.
the amount of time O'Connor had to apologise for interrupting someone must have been in double figures!

i used to think Rod Studd was alright, but now i think is he trying to break a world record for the most words yelled in 10 seconds?

Wells is no good neither.

He gets far too excited and starts to shout and talk too fast which causes him to get everyone's name wrong. Last year he called Saints' halfbacks "Luke Burns" and "Travis Walsh" after belting out two hundred words in about twenty seconds.

Studd is even worse than Wells for talking too fast. He sounds like a tape on fast forward sometimes.

I would like to see Jon Wells, Brian Carney and Barrie McDermott form a new commentary team.

We need to get rid of Eddie, Stevo, Phil Clarle and O'connor.

I'd like to see Carney presenting the whole show. Get a bog standard commentator in from outside the current Sky team to be main commentator with either Carney or Clarke (just keep him away from Wigan games) as 2nd commentator.

Have Carney as main presenter of the pre/halftime/post-match stuff along with 2 guests. 1 can be Clarke or Wells, the other should be an ex-player or coach, or both can be ex-players/coaches.
Then obviously continue Wells excellent bits at the touch screen.

Job done. Cut it down, most aren't needed. Unfortunately, I like most of the others, but they either come across as unprofessional or as not up to speed, or just not necessary.
Rod Studd - I've had enough of his talking too fast and talking over the top of other people, he also doesn't add anything that a generic commentator wouldn't.
Terry O'Connor - terrible. Just awful. Can't speak & furthers the "stupid northerner" image. Adds nothing insightful. Walking cliche generator. Whoever at Sky thought he was good on TV wants shooting.
Barrie McDermott - better than Terry, but still not good. Obsession with saying things like "Shot!" when someone puts a big hit in is cringeworthy. As mentioned by others, sounds like people talking in a pub.
Eddie - I've always sort of defended Eddie because when he sticks to commentating he can be very good at it. Sadly he seems determined not to stick to just commentating and I don't think you'd ever be able to reign him in now. Also, for someone who's been continually watching and involved with the game for so long his lack of knowledge is shocking. If it's possible to reign him in then keep him, if not then replace with a bog standard commentator.
Stevo - Now, I love Stevo, but his time has gone. He's now a little bit like your favourite grandad or uncle who isn't quite sure what's going on around him anymore and every now and again, when he's had a few pints, comes out with something daft. A shame but you still love him.

Also, whilst I'm on a rant, can someone at Sky sort out the post-match interviews, especially from Angela Powers. They just need to ask the coaches what they thought, not say things like "you were good first half but not 2nd" it leaves them nowhere to go.

can't argue with any of that.
although i do like Carney as a pundit, he usually goes against the grain though and doesn't sit on the fence, but isn't controversial with it either.
it just needs a whole refreshment, even the opening credits and graphics are now very dated.
for me, the whole lot should be revolved around Wells and Carney, and like you say, maybe Hemmings as commentator, but just to commentate not to invite debates and arguments about things that happened 5 minutes ago.

This in the Mail today under the heading, What's Hot:-

"It will take English rugby league a while to recover from the shambles of the World Club Series but they continue to innovate well in other areas and former referee Cummings's presence as a permanent Sky co-commentator should have grabbed football's attention."

For all the wrong reasons I would think.

BT Sport have Howard Webb on their football commentary as well. It's not innovative or attention-grabbing.

Having a ref on commentary was ok as something you do once in a while, not every bleeding game.

Bloody hell I absolutely agree with you. Far to many excuses are made when the simple fact is that most of our SL players don't put in the effort, don't have the desire and don't develop.

When a player with the vintage of Gidley can rip it up at Warrington or Dorn at Cas then you know there is a different mindset in operation.

Does anyone think that Gareth Widdop would be the player he is if he'd stayed in the UK - no chance.

The big difference is that you rarely hear him. In fact sometimes you dont hear him at all and the commentators paraphrase his views.

I dont like the idea full stop, but at least we dont get Webb's views on every little incident.

I find Stuarts interventions cringe worthy at times.

I like the NFL idea which I understand is being introduced in the NRL, of the broadcaster having access to an official from the refereeing department who is sat in a central studio somewhere.

While the main commentators are talking about a particular incident and watching the replays during a stoppage, the official can look at all the different camera angles (including ones the broadcaster isn't showing on their TV coverage) then chip in with their considered opinion. Works really well with the likes of Mike Pereira and Mike Carey who are former referees doing that role for the TV networks.

There's little point Cummings being sat on a commentary gantry seeing only the replays that Sky choose to show then having to pass an opinion on the spot off the back of that.

Cummings involvement wouldn't be so jarring if the idiot commentators didn't throw every incident at him as some kind of allegation - which he then feels compelled to defend from a refereeing viewpoint. It just doesn't work, because everyone involved is too dumb to use it properly.

As I said before - pare it back to only those voices that are necessary, and add in current or recently retired players who can actually talk sense about the game with some modern frame of reference; avoiding where possible the braggadocio of Baz and Tez (every single game has a reference to 'red sweat' and how often Baz was sent off) and the awkward bants of Eddie and Stevo.

To me it's as though they ask Cummings about some decision just to justify him being there. If they don't need to ask him then why bother?

I know we are straying a bit off topic, but I would love some non partizan commentary on the Dragons home matches.

It's great for us exiles that Sky show them, but please not so much Englishcentric commentary. If that's a word. And spell check says it isn't.