Eddie Hemmings and Mike 'Stevo' Stephenson have been reduced to northern caricatures by Sky Sports

[josie andrews]

For an event billed as one of the sport’s showpieces, there was little fanfare surrounding rugby league’s World Club Challenge on Friday night. No pub near me was showing it. None of my friends seemed to be aware of it.

Joey Barton wasn’t even tweeting about it, a sure sign something has managed to slip under the radar.

But then again, that’s because I live in the South. The meek, insipid South, where the beer is too fizzy, nobody talks to anybody and rugby is predominantly a device for public schoolboys to sublimate their repressed homosexuality.

Here, the bullish claims of Eddie Hemmings on Sky Sports that Leeds v Manly was “the biggest prize in club rugby league” fell on deaf ears. Up north, evidently, prior engagements were being cancelled en masse and a deathly hush was falling upon town centres. At least, this would have been your impression had you taken Sky’s pundits at face value. “It’s almost like an Olympic final,” Shaun McRae contested.
“The tries we see scored tonight will have a high quality to them,” Phil Clarke assured us.

Under no circumstances would the uninitiated have grasped that this was an early-season bagatelle, played by two teams with far bigger fish to fry. And these days, surely the biggest prize in club rugby league is a rugby union contract.

I’m joking, of course! It was a sizzling game, played in front of a thrillingly rowdy Headingley crowd. But the excitable, sugar-rush bombast of the Sky machine has been a recurring theme for some years now. At half-time, we were handed over to a man called Jon Wells, whose main job appears to be to stand on the pitch and talk as loudly and as quickly as possible. “WHAT A GAME! WHAT A GAME!” he kept shouting, giving a passable impersonation of a man being milked from beneath.

Spend a little time watching rugby league and an arresting ensemble cast of strange characters emerges. A former Manly legend with the unforgettable name of Peter Peters was brought upstairs to engage in a little light pseudo-macho joshing. “It’s a pleasure to have you in the studio, sir,” Hemmings said. “But we want to send you home as losers. You do know that, right?”

Peter Peters caught the eye immediately. He had a terrific bushy moustache, a sly comb-over bearing the unmistakable tint of artificial darkening, and a teddy bear called Barney which he had brought over for luck.

“Chop you in half and the word 'Manly’ is written right through you,” Hemmings said, oblivious to the fact that this sounded uncannily like a chat-up line. “But I hope you’re not smiling at the end.”

“I hope I am,” Peter Peters replied, gripping Barney with all his strength.

The next day, it was back to Super League, more inconsequential words tumbling out of the mouths of Hemmings and Mike 'Stevo’ Stephenson.

“He’s got to get the yellow card out,” Hemmings demanded of referee Phil Bentham as a brawl broke out during Huddersfield v Warrington. “I don’t care who he gets off the field, he’s got to make a point.”

One wonders, in the nicest possible sense, how such clearly unreconstructed specimens of humanity managed to get on television. How did they manage to slip through the net into Sky Sports’ menagerie of preened, moisturised metrosexuals and scented young girls?

But when you bear in mind that Sky is a multinational corporation run from London, it all makes sense.

Eddie and Stevo are caricatures of what southerners think all northerners are like. Brusque, straight-talking, opinionated, a pint of Tetley’s in one hand and a sprout tree in t’other, blunt, outspoken, quick to anger, fiercely passionate, and stuffed with banter, blinkered pride and an endless well of careworn catchphrases like “and I’ll tell you that for nowt”.

The reality, of course, is quite different. Sky’s team may be entertaining enough on the first few watches, but regular viewers who have been exposed to their loud-man shtick for two decades are entitled to expect a little more insight and a little less incitement.

Sky may reckon that the homespun patter of Eddie and Stevo plays well in the agnostic south. In fact, their habit for overstatement undersells the product, perpetuating the myth that rugby league is a simple game for simple people. And I’ll tell you that for nothing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... ports.html

[DaveO]

Well they can't go on forever. They will have to retire sooner rather than later and maybe it is age that is catching up with them as much as anything. In the early days they were better and far less patronising than the BBC but they have not really moved on and as the article suggests are bit stuck in a "northern" rut.

[wiganwarriordave]

“He’s got to get the yellow card out,” Hemmings demanded of referee Phil Bentham as a brawl broke out during Huddersfield v Warrington. “I don’t care who he gets off the field, he’s got to make a point.”

Must admit, i picked up on this particular passage at the time, and told the Mrs how ludicrously stupid it was. Granted the game was getting tasty, and cards were imminent, but "i don't care who it is", is not what should be coming out of an experienced commentators pie hole.

I feel their time is up, i know some people like them. And granted, you can't knock their enthusiasm and passion for the RL game in general.

To me, their constant droning, arguing, and generally biased waffle against anyone other than Leeds/Wire/Bratfot has made my mind up.

I don't agree with the articles pop at Jon Wells though, granted he gets excited, but he's usually spot on with his analysis. He's a damn site more articulate and professional in front of the camera than Wiggy & Whino, and offers some kind of insight into the game for the outsider. Unlike said 2's moaning about the weather/ref/artificial pitch/momentum rule or A.N.Other irrelevant topic..... Does "It's T.R.Y time" grate at anyone else every time he says it??

For me, Carney is begging for the job, and i cant help but think, that if Clarkee was a little less "pro-wigan" and more neutral, he and Brian would walk it. Backed up by Noble, Wells, McRae, Barry/Terry, Robbie Paul.... Seriously, this has to be their last season!?

[josie andrews]

They wouldn't be as bad if they commented on the game that was actually being played & stop going off on a tangent about everything & anything other than what is actually happening in the game/team/s being played at that instant.

They can talk for several minutes about what they had for breakfast/dinner etc, but 30 seconds about the game being played :exc:

[wiganwarriordave]

They wouldn't be as bad if they commented on the game that was actually being played & stop going off on a tangent about everything & anything other than what is actually happening in the game/team/s being played at that instant.

They can talk for several minutes about what they had for breakfast/dinner etc, but 30 seconds about the game being played :exc:

I fully agree Josie, but i don't think thats accidental. I think it's a sort of defense mechanism for them. Ever noticed how every time a new player is around, they never get mentioned by name? The Leeds/Manly game was embarrassing. The amount of times i heard "and the Manly player returns the ball". How much effort is it to get a team sheet in front of you to refer to? They are out of touch and out of their depth. It think they have been great servants to the sport, but now's the time to gracefully depart IMO.

[the winky one]

Sounds like someone swallowed a dictionary!!!.. :craz: :craz:

[eccywarrior]

i think they should go. i do believe if we got decent commentators then we could get more viewers in south. eddie is not even a rugby man and hes hopeless and stevo ye hes played the game but hes so out of time its shocking. id like see bill arthur, baz and tez given a try. baz and tez was hard players and wont keep going on about laws in game like them 2 prats do.

[josie andrews]

i think they should go. i do believe if we got decent commentators then we could get more viewers in south. eddie is not even a rugby man and hes hopeless and stevo ye hes played the game but hes so out of time its shocking. id like see bill arthur, baz and tez given a try. baz and tez was hard players and wont keep going on about laws in game like them 2 prats do.

Well no, I don't agree with that. They've been with Eddie & Stevo that long, they commentate exactly the same way, going off in their own little world discussing the game last or next week as long as it isn't the two teams playing at the time !!

It's like listening to a bunch of blokes in the pub :sly:
No offence intended to guys in the pub

Aussie commentators are miles better

[bourbon_rat]

The closing passage should be a final nail in the coffin for 'heave ho & heavy' - Sadly it will be ignored & these two peanuts will continue to drag down the general public's opinion of Rugby League!

One wonders, in the nicest possible sense, how such clearly unreconstructed specimens of humanity managed to get on television. How did they manage to slip through the net into Sky Sports’ menagerie of preened, moisturised metrosexuals and scented young girls?

But when you bear in mind that Sky is a multinational corporation run from London, it all makes sense.

Eddie and Stevo are caricatures of what southerners think all northerners are like. Brusque, straight-talking, opinionated, a pint of Tetley’s in one hand and a sprout tree in t’other, blunt, outspoken, quick to anger, fiercely passionate, and stuffed with banter, blinkered pride and an endless well of careworn catchphrases like “and I’ll tell you that for nowt”.

The reality, of course, is quite different. Sky’s team may be entertaining enough on the first few watches, but regular viewers who have been exposed to their loud-man shtick for two decades are entitled to expect a little more insight and a little less incitement.

Sky may reckon that the homespun patter of Eddie and Stevo plays well in the agnostic south. In fact, their habit for overstatement undersells the product, perpetuating the myth that rugby league is a simple game for simple people. And I’ll tell you that for nothing.

[markill]

The Aussie commentators can be just as bad as our commentators. And Ray French and Johnathan Davies are as bad as what Sky offer up as far as I'm concerned.

I have to say Carney talks a lot of sense, Clarkey provides some interesting insights using statistics better than I see anywhere else in sport other than maybe Sky's cricket coverage and Jon Wells does good analysis on the hope. All are intelligent and don't get too drawn in to the silly banter.

Barrie and Terry are ok, but they overplayed that double act thing and sometimes get drawn into Eddie's drivel. They actually aslo make some very smart and astute comments. They are better on SL Full-time with Bill