Struggling to watch Sky games with every ref decision being analysed and debated over and over!

[Gary Coyle]

Why on earth does Hemmings have to find fault with every play and every reffing decision, hes doing the game no favours at all and Cummins is obviously not a neutral party

[9' oller]

Its usually just after half time I have to almost mute the sound.

Clowns the pair of them

[Lounge Room Lizard]

Havent really watched Sl for a few years and part of that is down to the Sky Broadcasting team. They do nothing but ##### and moan about something or go way OTT about something. I dont want to hear the views of Stevo and Eddie or anybody else to be honest. I want somebody to highlight something about how a team or a player reads a game- Phil Gould for example on Channel 9 is good at that even if he does talk ###### at times. Channel 9 and Fox in Australia just talk about the game and whats happening.

dont go waffling on about things for 10 minutes missing vital action. I know a number of people that have switched from Sky to Premier Sports because they cant stand the way Sky do things. The RFL should have agreed with Sky that the Sky team should be more focussing on promoting the game and helping viewers understand the finer points instead of spending 80 minutes being negative and argueing amongst themselves and sound clueless. 

[guess who]

The way sky show the game is ruining it. If it doesnt get better i am going to cancel it.

[Railway End]

I watched the replay of the 1998 Grand Final on SKY the other day.

It was noticable that in those days Eddie seemed to "commentate" a lot more than he does now leaving the analysis to the expert (if you can call Stevo that).

It would appear that as the years have gone by, Hemmings seems to consider himself more of an authority on the game, believing his limited analysis on a situation is worth hearing. Or is he just being told to be unnecessarily controversial?

FWIW I think Eddie is quite a good commentator who can portray the excitement of the game well. SKY need to review the whole production from the old irrelevant opening credits, the irritating background music bed played when reviewing a try to the format and style of presentation.

I for one will soon by canceling my subscription so SKY will need to find someone else to help pay for there Premier League rights.

[thebull13]

Sky need to get these two dinosaurs off the TV now! And send their support cast with them! But it won't happen as nearly all of sky's resources has gone into securing premier league football so they can't replace them!!

[shaun mc]

Could be interesting to do a poll on this - have the pro Eddie/Stevo clan not had their say yet?

[Garvers]

Anyone with an ounce of sense know Eddie & Stevo make the game look a total joke.  The problem is, Sky's RL exec producer and long-time director, Neville Smith is best mates with them both - and between the three of them they sadly dictate Sky's coverage. They all go way back, and Smith's far too close to them to ever show them the door.  To genuinely put a rocket up Sky's coverage, Smith needs to go and be replaced with someone prepared to take genuine executive decisions. Not just in terms of presenters, but also on-screen direction which is stuck in the robotic dark ages. 

[GaryO]

Carney even had to cut off Eddie and talk over him at one stage to stop him from rambling on about some non-incident about three minutes earlier. Not sure why Stevo is attracting criticism here, apart from occasional complaints about forward passes it's 100% Eddie who is constantly whining about the refs and arguing with Cummins.

Are you sure you have got the right voice to the right body when they are off camera, Mike "That should have been a penalty" Stevo spouts negativity in most of his commentscomments.

[GaryO]

The SKY Union commentators don't critisize the refs.

I think it's because The RFU have made it part of their culture.

I'm sure that if they did, someone at Twickers would be having a quiet word with someone at SKY and saying" come on old chap, it's not the done thing to harp on about referees decisions"

The RFL should approach SKY and have a quiet word too. They may have us by the short and curlies but they are bringing the game into disrepute and it should be pointed out.

It's ironic that union is so boring the commentators NEED things to talk about but they steer clear of knocking the officials. On the other hand our game speaks for itself and by rehashing incidents Eddie and Co often miss the live action.

I've posted on this before and it's a fact that negative criticism has never altered or changed a decision made in a game.[/qdon't

I had the unfortunate experience of seeing a rugger game because a relative was playing in it, but wondering what was going on and noticing different decisions being given for the same offence, I asked someone close to me did the ref know what he was doing, his answer was a revelation to me and probably answers your initial comment that commentators in RU don't criticise refs.

He asked me was I Rugby League fan, when I said that I was he said therin lies the problem of RL supporters not realising the differance which is that in RL we have rules that are set in stone and should be adhered to, in RU they have laws which are open to the judiciary residing, which in the case of a match is the referee, so maybe they do not criticise because it could be they are bringing his intellect in question not his interpretations of the rules.

[Griff9of13]

Rugby also has laws not rules. Problem is 99% of people don't realise this. Every refferee decision is open to interpretation. If it weren't the game would never get going as strictly speaking there would be an offence to punish in each and every set.

[John Rhino]

It seems to be getting worse, yes the ref decisions are important but at the beginning of Super League it was always about the players, the skill they had, the excitement of the game etc.

I'm finding that that fans and SKY especially are placing a disturbing emphasis on every single referee decision, querying every call made whether it's right or wrong, call forward passes that never happened.

CAN WE JUST ENJOY THE GAME?

This is a worrying trend, I'm not enjoying the Sky broadcasts this season, I want to watch a sport not Stuart Cummings giving us his opinions on refereeing calls. Add to the fact that all the games on TV this year have been dull.

Time to get a grip!!

I could not agree more. It is not Cummings who creates the problem it is Eddy and Stevo.

Cummings was in the studio for the Catalan game. At one stage he said after a penalty. " the referee made the wrong decision there". The commentators said absolutely nothing.

Compare that to the Wigan game where just four minutes in Eddy disputes a clear knock on and is still moaning on about it nearly a minute later.

I think the truth is they are both bored with the job now. Replacements are desperately needed as like many others I'll save money and cancel if nothing changes.

[Padge]

I think part of the reason is the presence of Stuart Cummins.. like they need to justify him being there so go on and on about every single thing, as well as being pretty clueless.

I cancelled my Sky subscription at the start of last season, so ive had a season off from Eddie and Stevo.. but watching tonights game online is a painful reminder of how truly awful they really are.

 

Actually Cummings cuts out the crapola, he shuts up Stevo on many occassions. 

[Chapatti Pants]

The referees on the pitch don't help things, almost everything not 100% always goes to video, 5 minutes tick by, in the interim a coach party of gruff ex players, ridiculously weird panto characters & some smarmy people trying to swipe dodgy TV screens muscle in and it all goes pretty much down hill.

[ivans82]

less is more  .  let the match tell its own story.....just mention players in possession and big moments  .  i personally would have terry o connor and barrie mcdermott as the commentators  . they don t take things as deadly serious , quite light hearted and humorous at times  .  don t forget the bbc are no better  .  how many times in the nz match were we told how many points england needed to win by at the expense of everything that was happening on the pitch .

[St Reatham]

It's Sky who are fault here. Eddie and Stevo are paid to commentate like that. It seems Sky are trying to stick to the stereotype of rugby league being a "northern game". I've never understood why the weekly magazine programme is called "Boots'n'all" for example.

[The Big Gun]

I enjoyed the commentary of the Cats game on Saturday. I think Barrie and Terry are actually really good, and Bill Arthur is a decent lead commentator as well. 

[EastLondonMike]

The whole SKY production has needed a complete overhaul for sometime.. As someone mentioned earlier Neville Smith who has been in charge of RL on SKY since day one (i think) is the person who needs to embrace something new within the presentation of RL on SKY. New commentators, new producers with fresh ideas and some creativity in how the game is presented. Not just the same-old-same-old with a different theme tune and graphics every couple of years, along with a furniture shift in the studio to make it look like something different than what it was previously. The whole production and presentation is stale.

[BBR]

That bloody music when they show the try replays has to change too

[South Wakefield Sharks]

The opening post was about the focus on refs and it has turned into a thread on Sky (I watch the pictures, but listen to commentary by Dave Woods on 5Live Xtra).

On the subject of focussing on refs, it is not just Eddie & Stevo. Trevor Hunt and Jack Dearden on BBC Radio Manchester this week went on and on and on about inconsistencies by refs, focussing on the Ah Van and Westwood high shots. Even when Robert Hicks came on the radio to explain why Ah Van was a red (direct contact to the head) and Westwood was yellow (indirect contact to the head), the response was "Well at the ground, it didn't look like that to me, so surely the refs are being inconsistent"!

What it says to me, is that the ref got it right, when they reviewed it on tape later, they confirmed the ref got it right, and most speccies and commentators who saw it live, got it wrong. That doesn't make the refs inconsistent, it just shows they get more things right than speccies would.

We do have a real problem with the media stoking the fans up to bang on and on about ref decisions. It is boring, detracts from the players and the spectacle and is totally unnecessary.

"We're only two rounds in, and everyone is focussing on the referees, and not the players. Get in touch, and tell us why you think refs are ######".

[cookey]

I certainly much prefer Bill Arthurs more natural approach to commentary,than that of Hemmings.

[Red John]

On the subject of focussing on refs, it is not just Eddie & Stevo. Trevor Hunt and Jack Dearden on BBC Radio Manchester this week went on and on and on about inconsistencies by refs, focussing on the Ah Van and Westwood high shots. Even when Robert Hicks came on the radio to explain why Ah Van was a red (direct contact to the head) and Westwood was yellow (indirect contact to the head), the response was "Well at the ground, it didn't look like that to me, so surely the refs are being inconsistent"!

What it says to me, is that the ref got it right, when they reviewed it on tape later, they confirmed the ref got it right, and most speccies and commentators who saw it live, got it wrong. That doesn't make the refs inconsistent, it just shows they get more things right than speccies would.

 

Jack and Trevor have, for me, made RL coverage on Radio Manchester pretty much unlistenable. In particular, Jack's ignorance of the sport not only has depth, but has length and breadth too. The programme therefore just descends into some knockabout nonsense combined with griping about refs.

 

Having said that, I did hear a bit of the show this week, and.....now I can't believe I'm going to do this.....I feel I might have to defend them on the Westwood/Ah Van thing. It seemed to me that the argument was that both incidents deserved the same punishment. Although it's true that Westwood caught the shoulder first, that only became apparent on a video replay. The game wasn't televised and so video replays weren't an option. Viewed in real time, it looks like Westwood caught Adam Walne around the head with no prior contact to the shoulder. Unless the referee saw that initial contact (and Robert Hicks didn't say that he had, just that when viewed on video that initial contact was with the shoulder) then it looks like the same offence as Ah Van's. Therefore, both should have received the same punishment - either both yellow cards or both red.

 

At least I think that was their argument.

 

On the whole, though, I agree that there's too much emphasis on referees. Far too much.

[C H Calthrop]

Salford v Saints 2015 rd 2 Sky Sports commentary team !!!!!

 

Barrie; " Lets change the terminorol .....terminology of RL and call that the utilising the Makinson technique. Getting the ball up, levitating in the air, plonking it down".

 

Stevo; " Wow levitating in the air".

 

Eddie; " Terminology, these are.....everyone needs an ology and Barrie's discovered one tonight".

 

Stevo; "As they say he has swallowed the tehsarious (thesaurus)".

 

Barrie;" The what"?

 

Eddie; " You need to look at the dictionary"

 

Stevo; "He probably thinks it's from the PLANET OF THE APES"                  

 

That actually happened........ 

[westlondonfan]

I cancelled Sky a couple of years ago. I don't miss it at all. I got Premier for the World Cup and kept it up to the last 4 Nations. No not missing Eddie and Stevo and the Sky coverage at all.

[back to the future]

I cancelled Sky a couple of years ago. I don't miss it at all. I got Premier for the World Cup and kept it up to the last 4 Nations. No not missing Eddie and Stevo and the Sky coverage at all.

But by doing that your missing out on SL

Cant we get some kind of petition up or bombard sky with e-mails to get rid of these dinosaurs

If sky finally think its costing them money they may act

Having said that if(well its a sure fire thing) sky put my subs up to cover their stupid bid for Football I'm Off