I'd agree with that.
I like Eddie when he just sticks to commentating instead of his opinion. Stevo can be stupid sometimes but I can't help but like him.
Clarke does my head in. In the fact that when he's fawning over one team he can be pretty good with some useful insights, although the stats thing has gone a bit too far on occasions. But I think he's very good when talking about the sport in general.
Carney I think is superb and has to be the future. Often insightful and always impartial.
Wells is good for a bit of analysis.
Barrie I think is getting better and better as is Rod Studd.
Terry, sadly, still makes me cringe.

Overall not much needs changing, just a bit less opinion & constantly reviewing and commenting on controversial decisions, and a bit more commentating from Eddie & Stevo and I think the whole thing would be much better.

Reading the first couple of pages youd have got some sound bytes for the commentary on a video game.

I like Stevo.

i don't know if he's done games before, but I thought Graham Beecroft's commentary for the Catalan-London game was pretty decent.

I'll go with ^^^ that

No! He said the wrong players name more often than Ray French!!!

I totally agree with you. I think Brian Carney and Barrie Mac are working hard at improving and it really shows. Terry was poor a couple of years ago and is no better today. Just churns out the same old tired cliches and is not very insightful.

Barrie needs to ditch the Baz and Tez double act if he knows what's good for him.

Embarrassment is the best word to describe Stevo in my opinion, the bloke is long past retirement. He can take Phil 'if you watch Wigan' Clarke with him as well.

Agree on Clarke but Stevo is a hero of our game

Was a very good player in his day, no arguments there, but so was Clarke. This doesn't make them good media people.

one of the most recognizable voices in sports commentary

Doesn't make him any good, just recognisable

Upper body strength

The problem Stevo has is Eddie Hemmings trying to turn them into some sort of poor comedy double act and arguing like a married couple. If you've seen Stevo on Super League Back Chat without Eddie there you can tell its an improvement on the Stevo that's around Hemmings.

Rambunctious.

Stevo has become a caricature of himself.

I agree with an earlier poster that the Origin commentary is high quality and what sky should be aspiring to. They even manage to keep gobby gould pretty much under wraps.

It would also be good if they could get a recently-ex top-coach to give insight into the MODERN game.

a few years ago our fanzine called stevo aposh t**t,bcause he refused to do an interveiw. about sums him up imho and i wish the pair of them would just call the game,instead of all the rubbish they come out with

Paul Cullen
Shaun McRae
John Kear
Brian Noble

Not to mention recent ex-players such as Clarke, Carney, Wells, McDermott & O'Connor.

I think he's an excellent pundit; he seems very knowledgeable about the game and has some good insight to offer; after all, he's achieved everything in the game as a player. It's a shame he spends most of the time making a moron out of himself commentating! He's well past his sell by date now.

I'll grant you that is a list of recently ex-coaches, but TOP? IMO only one of that list would fit the bill. However, I also quite like Kear, at least he does provide the odd bit of insight and doesn't always fall over himself to agree with SteEdward. Also, at least you can understand him - unlike Cullen who, IMO, is a pompous so-and-so who tries to over-intellectualise the game.

Everyone I know who has met him say how impressive he is when talking about the game, much more intelligent than he comes across on the box. He's clearly been given a part/role to play by Sky, unfortunately that part has become very jaded and he's turned into a caricature. Same thing happened to Waring.

I don't quite know what you want to be honest, Noble has won everything a few times, McRae has won SL, Kear has won the cup twice and Cullen a coach of a decent SL team for several years (and I suspect had his wife not sadly died he would be Widnes' coach rather than Betts).
Who are you expecting Sky to have on? Wayne Bennett?
There have only been 11 people to coach a SL winning side. Out of that 11, 5 are back home in Australia, 3 are current SL head coaches & 1 has been out of the game for a while. The remaining 2 are Noble & McRae.

Could Tristram explain which 'TOP' coaches are outside of the game and could be used? By the very nature of being top coaches and understanding the 'MODERN' game, they're usually working as coaches.

Which kind of makes sense when you think about it.

What more do you peope want?



I conceded one TOP (that would be Noble) and Kear (who isn't an ex-coach). The other pair no thanks!!! I think I'd rather have Milwart when he comes on the market again (presumably soon, having found out that you can't create/maintain a SL squad on total a budget of 30p a week)