20 Years of Sky Sports Coverage is marked on April 19th when Bradford play Leeds.

Their first match they showed was on April 19th 1991 when Castleford hosted Leeds in a Premiership Semi Final (they had taken over coverage from BSB Sport Channel after a merger).

Now I don't really want to get into a debate about the quality of Sky's current commentary team but what are your thoughts on the way Sky has covered the game over those years?

Whilst Sky's increased coverage of League Matches has been good (I think anyway) has the sport overall lost out by losing a lot of the BBC Coverage in that 20 years? I think so, particularly in test matches.

And what has been the most memorable Wigan game (or any other game for that matter) covered by Sky?

I'll list a few Wigan ones......

Good Friday 1993 - Wigan 8 St Helens 8
Back then Sky only had one channel so matches being shown delayed happened quite often and that was the case with this title decider. If Saints had won they'd have opened up a 4 point gap over Wigan and would have only needed 1 point in their final match to win the title and having led 8-2 Wigan had a hell of a long way to fight back on a heavy pitch. Wigan did fight back and it looked like Joe Lydon had scored a drop goal late on to make it 9-8. But the rules of the time meant that if the drop goal was touched in flight it didn't count and thus the match was drawn - "a title decider than decided nothing". Wigan won the title on points difference in the end (they had a game in hand).

Boxing Day 1994 - St Helens 25 Wigan 32
Sky's best ever game for me. Adam Fogerty only got a yellow card for headbutting Neil Cowie before Henry Paul was sent off for an innocuous trip on Steve Prescott before half time. Wigan had built up a 20-2 lead at the break so it wasn't all bad but Saints launched a second half fight back with a further sin bin to Gary Connolly giving them a two man advantage. Just as Connolly returned Kelvin Skerrett was binned for fighting with Ian Pickavance (who also went). Saints in all that time had turned 20-2 down into a 25-20 lead but Steve Prescott's error allowed Wigan a rare second half attack, Tuigamala barrelled over four Saints men to score and Wigan won in the end 32-25.

9th June 1996 - Wigan 18 London 18
Sky only showed Highlights but Terry b*stard Matterson costing us the title



The Whole 2000 Season
I still say this was Super League's best ever season. Wigan, Saints or Bradford would all have made worthy end champions. Just think of the moments in the season. Wigan and Bradford doing a superb midweek draw at JJB, Neil Cowie's drop goal win at Bradford, Tommy b*stard Martyn last minute try to beat us at JJB, Radlinski's last second try to beat Bradford at JJB, Wigan hammering Saints to finish in first at Knowsley Road, Wide to West match (still say if that hadn't happened we'd have won the title).

2nd March 2001 - Wigan 34 Warrington 6
Scoreline irrelevant. This was just 80 minutes of fighting and winding up Tawera Nikau

29th June 2001 - Saints 28 Wigan 29
Great game. Carney's tackle to deny Anthony Sullivan then Paul Sculthorpe missed a pen to win it for Saints.

Good Friday 2003 - Wigan 24 St Helens 22
Self Explanatory. Jon Whittle legend for all the wrong reasons haha.

6th June 2003 - St Helens 34 Wigan 38
20-0 down after being steam rolled for 30 minutes. Somehow we came back, with a Luke Robinson hatrick, to lead 36-20 after 55 minutes. Saints did come back with three tries but we hung on.

2003 Play Off - Leeds 22 Wigan 23
An amazing play off game. Brian Carney's full lengther cost me a mobile phone. Dunno if I got mugged celebrating or it just dropped out my pocket but I never found it and didn't care. It was one of them cheap nokia's with that addictive snake game on it - top of the range phone back then haha!

2004 Play Off - St Helens 21 Wigan 21
Ok a lot of these memories are Saints games but this is memorable for the "f*cking sh*thouse" fight. Wayne Rooney swearing - pah! Nothing on that!

13th May 2006 - Wakefield 10 Wigan 8
Not a memorable game at all but it was the night I thought Wigan had been relegated.

11th August 2006 - Leeds 18 Wigan 20
But we came good! What a backs to the wall effort this was.

2007 Play Offs - Bradford 30 Wigan 31
I still say this was a better feeling that winning the final last year. Every time I see the Calderwood intercept I still get a lump in the throat.




Add your own memories of great Sky games.

Away at both Warrington and Saints last year! Quality wins. Both really showed we were back. We had not won at saints for years and had never won at the HJ in the league.

Think you've pretty much covered most of them there, but assuming it was on Sky, the Saints game where Henry Paul scored from a drop-out in the early 90's, and also the 98 GF Semi when Gilmour ran 3/4 of the length of the pitch to score - seems to be my last memory of a night-time match at Central Park.

Overall, if you can ignore the inanity of Eddie & Stevo (why are we the only sport who has to deal with joke 'personality' commentators?), Sky's generally been good for the game. Yes, there used to be test matches on the BBC, but I don't think Sky are necessarily responsible for @rsing up International RL. Simple fact is, Ashes tests were worth watching & had a sense of meaning - the constant chopping & changing of teams & competitions since has de-valued it totally - but that's another thread.

I'm unfortunately old enough to remember what TV coverage was like in the 80's - you got 1 game from each round of the Challenge Cup & the same for the Regal Trophy + the Premiership Final. Absolutely no live league coverage whatsoever, and the WCC against Manly didn't even have highlights shown - just a condescending 'well done Wigan' from Des 'I love Union' Lynam on Sportsnight. Over the Easter weekend you now get about 50% of the matches you used to get in a whole season + Championship coverage as well.

Only thing that really bugs me about Sky is the way they constantly refer to RL as if it didn't exist before 1995 - they do exactly the same with football & it p1sses me right off!

wasn't the house fight Good Friday? what a punch up that was. Can you see in football John Terry and Rio bashing lumps out of each other like Scully and Faz were.

I'm sure that Leeds game was played in August during our successful battle against relegation. I remember this game very fondly as this was the game that cemented my interest in Rugby League and the Wigan club. A fantastic reply to the points deduction at the start of that week.

I did develop a liking for the game shortly before and kept an eye out for Wigan's results as one of my best friends is a Wigan fan, but watching that game sealed the deal for me and I don't regret it



And no fatbaztod, a fight between those two would be broken up by one of the other players going down like a sack of poop at the slightest contact.

Also I think the 20-12 win over Saints to clinch a playoff place in 2007 could have made the list. We ended a dire run of results against the Old Enemy in which we didn't beat them since Good Friday 2005 and David Vaealiki leaving Paul Wellens on his backside was fantastic.

it was august yes. course it was

For sheer emotion it would have to be the 30-31 Bradford game for me. I was supposed to be going to the game, but in the end decided against it and ended up watching it on TV.

I went through the full range of emotions, from saying, ah well I least I didn't miss much, to I can't believe I didn't go! I can honestly say it is the only game where I watched the 80 mins and then straight after watched the full 80 again straight away just to check if what really happened did actually happen.

The sight of the players going to the fans, and the all the fans going absolutely beserk at the final whistle still gives me goosebumps now. Top stuff.