Jon Wells and Terry O’Connor don’t know what a knock on is.
Or maybe I’m wrong.

Try for me. The one were Gaskell took a dive should have been awarded. There was one that should be a penalty for tackle in the air but was given as a knock on as well (can't remember which team benefited). KR should feel hard done to, but not for the one Wells was moaning about.

Awful stuff really. Far too much variability and subjectivity in the application of the rules - the whole game looked a farce tonight.

Glad to just hear Phil Clarke call out Jon Wells for not understanding the rules.

Do any of them understand the rules? Do any of them even know what they're watching?

Let's admit it, they're just plain poop.

For all of last year we've all been exposed to the high levels of professional coverage in the NRL, and after that, I'm afraid that Sky's comedy coverage just doesn't even come close to cutting it.

Where is it written that a sports commentator MUST unashamedly support the underdog? Yet in the last four Wigan games, that's exactly what's happened. If it isn't that, we've got Baz or Tez proclaiming that such and such a journeyman player is the 'best in the league' at whatever discipline happens to come to mind at the time. We've got crap jokes and inane gabble rather than actual commentary. We've got a continuation of the Eddie and Stevo disease where it's vital to search high and low to find any possible reason why a try might not actually be a try. We've got no criticism whatsoever of the latest cadre of utterly inept referees. We've got Phil Clark arguing that Shaun Wane only won loads of trophies because Wigan spent more than anyone else (in the age of the Salary Cap, under the shrew governance of Ian Lenagan!!!!!).

Let's not pretend the whole Sky Sports show aren't still the worst pile of crap since the last pile of crap.

Don’t get me started on the camera production and how the presentation is as bad as a uni student doing their first project. Before the game I thought I’d stumbled across a voyeur channel of Richard Agar!

Did you miss that this thread was started because Wells heavily criticised a ref for a decision a lot of us think was correct? IMO the SL commentators spend too much to time talking about the decisions rather than the superstars on the screen. In the NRL they will mention a bad call briefly but then they're straight back into talking about the action. That's how it should be IMO. Even after the game it seemed to be a review of the refereeing decisions rather than the 1 point game we had just watched.

With the exception of Carney (most of the time), they’re all excruciatingly amateur and that must be a reflection of how much SKY want to spend on it.

The only time the analysis is any good is when they have an articulated guest on with actual knowledge of the game outside of “just run ‘ard and tackle ‘ard” (see O’Connor and McDermott).

They need to make more use of recent players who people actually value the opinions of e.g. Wilkin, Scully, Pryce, Kev Brown, Briers - ones who actually had brains as a player.

Barrie and Terry have overstayed their welcome by about 10 years, can only assume the producers are mates with them and don’t want to sack them.

I just assume it's another version of the Eddie Waring / Ray French thing, where having 'characters' is deemed a higher priority than having coherent, knowledgeable commentators.

I wouldn't be surprised if Mick Morgan gets pulled in at some point with a remit to keep saying that he 'can't speyk'.

I can only think it comes down to personal relationships. If Terry O’Connor isn’t In a job because he’s a ‘popular’ guy amongst the production team them then I’m a China mon. I don’t mind Baz or even Phil Clarke but listening to Terry O’Connor is plain wrong.

I don't mind Jon Wells so much. He knows his stuff and articulates well, though I always felt that his connections at Cas were a potential problem. Brian Carney is a decent front man. He's got the looks and the chat, but the others are just oddballs.

I get totally frustrated with incidents like the Phil Clarke moment when he told a blatant lie about Shaun Wane winning trophies because Wigan had 'spent more money than anyone else' and nobody tackled him for it.

That was on a par with Eddie and Stevo's famous 'Can Leeds pull it back from Wigan late in the game ... let's hope so.'

Yeah, okay ... I'm a Wigan fan and probably paranoid. But that doesn't mean the Sky RL commentary team doesn't yet again need a big shake-up.

I could be wrong, but I reckon Sky think that there isn't much potential for UK rugby league beyond what we have now. The best players are increasingly going to the NRL, the salary cap is staying the same, efforts to spread the game to other areas are largely thwarted. Bearing that in mind, why would they spend time and money trying to revamp the commentary team or the way the game is presented? Might as well just keep costs low if they can't increase viewers.

I wouldn't be surprised. As always, we are the architect of our own misfortunes.

Commentary team didn't bother me. I watch for the game really. Funny pat that much interest to what commentators are saying....

I think Grimmy is spot-on, sadly.