He was number 2 commentator today too. He did plenty of the track events and Paul Dickenson was doing the field stuff

Thanks. Certainly their 'go to' commentator just now - must have been impressed with his 'dash' at the rugby & thought he could do athletics too!

Has poor old Gary Newbon been axed from something else then?
Not much left for him to do now.

He also did the Olympic men's 100m final for 3D viewers

Des Lynam article. Completely ignores the fact that BBC sports rights are diminishing so some commentators need to be versatile to maintain a living. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/990...o-experts.html

Saturday 9 March on RTE Two

Scotland v Wales and Ireland v France- Tom McGurk is joined by Bernard Jackman, Brent Pope, George Hook and Shane Horgan to present. With commentary by Hugh Cahill and Frankie Sheahan at Murrayfield and Ryle Nugent and Ralph Keyes at the Aviva Stadium

Yeah - full of contradictions. Like saying commentators should specialise, but still implying Andrew Cotter is a decent commentator, even though he covers most sports the BBC cover. And saying Raymond Glendenning was an expert on "transmitting what he could see to the ear of the listener with great style", despite commentating on just about everything going.

has anyone been watch the snooker on ITV4
i think Neal Foulds has been excellent, and i wish BBC would use him more
i think if ITV broadcast this next year, have another co comm.
but this week Neal has shown hes probably the best snooker pundit out there...

Not been watching a lot of it has Foulds been in the studio and in commentary? AKA not hiding they are offtube?

A few recent cycling ones:

Rob Hatch has done the Tour of Langkawi round-up this week, attempted Le Samyn only for its coverage to be cancelled, as well as Strade Bianche for Eurosport yesterday, with co-commentator Brian Smith.

David Harmon and Sean Kelly doing Paris-Nice today.

yea they were offtube,
i thought itv did good at it..

I haven't seen much of it but the studio bits i have seen has had Foulds in the studio with Jill Douglas and at the end of play and itv4 coverage a few days Jill has thanked Neal Foulds for his work in the studio and the commentary of Peter Drury and Clive Everton upstairs in the box and well done to fellow ulsterman Mark Allen in winning the tournament.

In other news:
European Indoor Athletics - BBC Two & BBC HD
Presenter: Jonathan Edwards
With: Denise Lewis, Colin Jackson & Paula Radcliffe
Commentators: Steve Cram, Paul Dickinson & Andrew Cotter
Reporter: Phil Jones

The studio team joined the box during races as usual but for me it was suprising that Cotter was calling races and Dickinson was doing field events but I like Cotter so I didn't mind at all

Peter Drury only did the "second" match when there was another game going on at the same time of the live one, so we heard him during intervals etc. He wasnt involved at all when it went down to one table.

As a snooker commentator he is very good at football. Not his bag I feel.

More information on ITV's snooker coverage in David Hendon's blog
http://www.snookerscene.blogspot.co....orld-open.html

Incidentally, during the interval they screened some frames from Ronnie O'Sullivan v Stephen Hendry in the 1997 Charity Challenge Trophy Final with commentary from Jim Meadowcroft and Rex Williams.

I only seen matches with Clive and Neal on commentary and as expected they worked well but I heard Jill namechecking Peter at the end of programmes. Didn't catch as much of this as I would of liked with Uni and work but thanks for the information Darren

Saturday 16 March on BBC One

Italy v Ireland- Jason Mohammed is joined by Marco Bortolami to present. Commentary by Conor McNamara and Philip Matthews.

Wales v England- John Inverdale presents. Analysis from Clive Woodward, Jeremy Guscott and Jonathan Davies, with commentary by Eddie Butler and Brian Moore.

Clive Tyldesly and Andy Townsend for the United-Madrid game on ITV with Keane, Southgate and Dixon as pundits?

Sunday 10 March on RTE Two

England v Italy- Tom McGurk is joined by Conor O'Shea, Donal Lenihan and Shane Horgan to present. Commentary by Hugh Cahill and Tony Ward

Looks like it was the BBC's decision
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/t...f-cycling.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/oth...r-old-men.html

Saturday 16 March on BBC Two

France v Scotland- Gabby Logan is joined by Andy Nicol to present, Commentary by Andrew Cotter and Lawrence Dallaglio.

Sunday 3rd March - BBC Two Wales

Scrum V

Ross Harries presented alongside Jonathan Davies and Martyn Williams

RaboDirect Pro12
Munster v Ospreys - Gareth Charles and Sean Holley*
Scarlets v Edinburgh - Gareth Charles and Tom Shanklin
Newport Gwent Dragons v Leinster - Nick Webb
Glasgow Warriors v Cardiff Blues - Phil Steele

Principality Premiership
Llanelli v Llandovery - Phil Steele
Round-up - Ross Harries (reporting)

Preview of Scotland v Wales from Edinburgh, including interviews with Stuart Hogg and Scott Hastings - Ross Harries
Interview with Ian Evans - Gareth Rhys Owen

*Given that there was a (captioned) co-commentator with Charlo on the Saturday teatime game, I'm guessing that this was S4C's English language Red Button commentary from their live coverage of it.

Predictable enough reaction from people who want a crack at the BBC, but they've made the right decision. I'm really fond of Hugh's commentaries, but I felt myself cringing on his behalf a little too much during the Olympics. A couple of races seemed to totally get away from him. I'm glad he got to commentate on 2012, but it's the start of a new Olympic cycle and only fair to Simon Brotherton to give him time to settle in.

So difficult for BBC managers to deal with if Porter didn't want to go. They went and broke it to him face-to-face, ran a good, dignified tribute on-air, and offered him a commentary gig at the Winter Olympics. Not sure what else they could have done?

According to Sky Sports Twitter,

Ian Ward, Alec Stewart and Paul Collingwood will be in the studio with Botham, Lloyd, Atherton, Knight and Willis on commentary plus ''various New Zealand commentators"

that is a pretty poor commentary team, Willis, Botham are Crap.
Lloyd starts to come in my nerves now, he talk too much crap these day, was one of my favorite comms before.
Knight tries to analysis the game too much and over complicates the game.
Atherton is the only good commentator going in this tour.
it will be pretty good if their use various tour commentators during the summer, especially when good commentators are only on TMS.

Agreed - Willis' voice is shot these days so I'm amazed they have him on.
Knight and Botham are excruciating - I hope the excellent Ian Smith is one of the NZ commentators used.

David Gower being pushed out or does the great man just pick and choose his games now

Ian Ward certainly seems to be the rising star of Sky sports and looks like he has become second presenter behind Gower and ahead of Colville