England v Wales
John Inverdale with Jeremy Guscott, Clive Woodward and Jonathan Davies

Commentary: Eddie Butler, Brian Moore and Shane Williams
Reporter: Sonja McLaughlin.

I like Shane Williams, but he was yipping away a touch too much, Jonathan Davies style. Have to Say Butler on top form today!


France v Scotland
Gabby Logan with Lawrence Dallaglio and Andy Nicol

Commentary: Andrew Cotter, Chris Paterson and Lawrence Dallaglio
Pitchside: Jill Douglas and Serge Betsen

Surprised at the bodies on show in Paris, and good too, I thought it would be a bit more sparse in terms of coverage.

Wales V England (RBS 6 Nations RU)

Gareth Roberts hosting from the Millennium stadium, with Gareth Edwards, Gareth Davies and Dafydd Jones (all pitchside at first) with Dot Davies interviewing players and getting quite a lot of kisses from players at the end of the match (and from Justin Marshall).

Commentary came from Huw Llewellyn Davies and Dr. Gwyn Jones, with Brynmor Williams on tactical analysis, with Dot Davies questioning Dafydd Jones every now and then about in-game play, etc.

Is that former All Black and now Welsh hotelier Justin Marshall?

Presenter: Tom McGurk
With: George Hook, Brent Pope & Conor O'Shea
Reporter: Clare McNamara

Commentators:
Italy v Ireland - Ryle Nugent & Donal Lenihan
Wales v England - Hugh Cahill & Ralph Keyes
France v Scotland - George Hamilton & Scott Hastings

(nods) He also pops up every now and then on Scrum V whenever they need an antipodean point of view.

He was briefly interviewed on BBC 1 too I think

He was interviewed by Sonja in the build-up. On a general note, I just want to say that I thought BBC One's coverage of the Wales v England game today was fantastic, befitting a wonderful occasion and match.

I really enjoyed the pre-match build-up, the features both live and pre-recorded (a special nod to Lawrence Dallaglio's arty Warburton v Robshaw segment here) really set the scene for a big occasion and I thought the commentary was superb as well. Eddie Butler had an outstanding game, showing why for me he is one of the best sports commentators around today; I thought Brian Moore was very fair in his praise of Wales but at the same time not overly critical of England and Shane Williams, while dropping in "we" and "us" a bit too often - I'm tempted to give him a bit of a free pass for this, not just because he's new to broadcasting but also because he's given me so much enjoyment as a player down the years - provided a fresh take and I found him easy to relate to. I don't usually think the analyst role works that well but it seemed to suit Jonathan Davies, who made some good observations at the right times. Even Clive Woodward didn't grate that much!

Great coverage by the BBC all round, for all the criticism they receive over little things (often personal preferences over individual personalities they use) I think when it comes to the overall production of their rugby union coverage, it is one of the sports that they provide very strong coverage of. And congratulations to Wales too.

The 6N coverage was great but what exactly did interviewing a ten year old add to it?

Italy v Ireland

Presenter: Joanne Cantwell
With: Sarah Jane Belton & Frankie Sheahan
Commentators: Ryle Nugent & Rosie Foley
Reporter: Clare McNamara

This was shown Live on RTE as Ireland had already secured the Women's 6 Nations title and were going for the Grand Slam, this was the first time the Irish Women were shown live on TV in Ireland despite RTE showing every other Irish Rugby team before from Wolfhounds to U20s. Well done Ireland, and while it was a poor match because of the bad weather in Italy at least it gave us Irish Rugby fans something to cheer and winning the Grand Slam on St. Patricks Day.

Was it this boy you'd have seen in Wales for Six nations matches?

Yes, thought it was jsut a random kid being interviewed in the tunnel.

Saturday 23 March on RTE Two

Leinster v Glasgow Warriors- Daire O'Brien is joined by Alan Quinlan to present. Commentary by Ryle Nugent and Tony Ward.

GAA: St. Patricks Maghera v St. Pauls Bessbrook
Presenter: Austin O'Callaghan
With: Eoin Bradley & Steven McDonnell
Commentators: Mark Sidebottom & Oisin McConville
Reporters: Thomas Kane & Thomas Niblock

Rugby Union: Methody v RBAI
Presenter: Gavin Andrews
With: Willie Anderson & Tony McWhirter
Commentators: Jim Neilly & Bryn Cunningham
Reporter: Nikki Greig

As St. Patricks Day was a Sunday the Monday is the official Bank Holiday in Ireland and Northern Ireland so the finals were played today instead of Sunday. Only seen the Rugby as I don't follow GAA but took the GAA details from the end credits shown at the end of the programme so if any details are wrong please tell me and I will correct them

Sunday 17th March - BBC Two Wales

Scrum V: Six Nations Special

Jason Mohammad presented alongside Gareth Edwards, Jonathan Davies, Phil Vickery and Shane Williams, with Lisa Rogers and Rick O'Shea in the audience and Sean Holley in the "Stat Pad"

Wales v England - Eddie Butler, Brian Moore and Shane Williams, with Sonja McLaughlan conducting post-match interviews, Ross Harries conducting interviews from Sunday's press conference and Rick O'Shea reporting (while wearing an England shirt!) from the Millennium Stadium
Italy v Ireland - Phil Steele (reporting)
France v Scotland - Andrew Cotter and Chris Paterson, with Phil Steele voicing parts of the edit

Wales Women v England Women & Wales Under-20s v England Under-20s - Non Evans (reporting)

The Lions Den - Gareth Edwards picked his Lions XV, with his choices being voiced by Phil Steele

Given that there was no commentary on the Under-20s edit, I'm guessing S4C didn't provide an English language Red Button commentary on Friday night. Phil Vickery was brilliant on Scrum V, I know he was widely criticised as a co-commentator on ITV's Rugby World Cup 2011 coverage but he was so engaging as a studio pundit on this. At times he came across as being completely bonkers but he was very likeable throughout. On a serious note, he made a great point about the politics behind Shaun Edwards not being involved in the Lions tour which I completely agree with. It's good to know I'm not the only person to be irked by his glaring ommission from the coaching staff.

On a general note, I want to congratulate BBC Wales on an excellent series of Six Nations Specials. I really like the rugby club style set and how they have a live studio audience, it helps to make how they are treating the show and the Six Nations as a whole stand out as a really big deal. I believe this grand scale production style of sporting discussion/highlights programmes is done a lot in Europe, particularly in places like Germany and Italy, and I would like to see it more on British television. This format would lend itself well to coverage of other sports I feel, so BBC Wales is leading the way at least in the UK in this respect.

Sunday 31 March on BBC One

Clare Balding presents live coverage of the 159th University Boat Race. With commentary by Andrew Cotter, Dan Topolski and Wayne Pommen.

I see Oxford and Cambridge have got to the final again.

World Baseball Classic; MLB Network (USA) & ESPN America (UK)

First Round

Pool A (games involving Japan, Brazil, Cuba and China, played at the Fukuoka Dome)

Commentators: Rich Waltz and Buck Martinez

Pool B (games involving Chinese Taipei, Australia, Korea Republic and the Netherlands, played at Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium)

Commentators: JB Long and Joe Magrane

Pool C (games involving Puerto Rico, Spain, Dominican Republic and Venezuela, played at the Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan)

Commentators: Gary Thorne and Jose Mota, with Alanna Rizzo reporting

Pool D (games involving the United States, Italy, Mexico and Canada)

For Italy v Mexico, played at Salt River Fields, Talking Stick, Scottsdale, Arizona:

Commentators: Matt Yallof and Jeff Nelson

For the five other games, played at Chase Field, Phoenix, Arizona:

Commentators: Matt Vasgersian and Jim Kaat, with Sam Ryan reporting


Second Round

Pool A (games involving Japan, Chinese Taipei, Cuba and the Netherlands, played at the Tokyo Dome)

Commentators: Rich Waltz and Buck Martinez

Pool B (games played at Marlins Park, Miami, Florida)

For Italy v Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico v United States and Puerto Rico v Italy:

Commentators: Matt Vasgersian and John Smoltz, with Heidi Watney reporting

For Dominican Republic v United States:

Commentators: Matt Vasgersian and Tom Verducci, with Heidi Watney reporting

For Puerto Rico v United States and Puerto Rico v Dominican Republic:

Commentators: Matt Vasgersian and Harold Reynolds, with Heidi Watney reporting


Finals (games played at AT&T Park, San Francisco, California)

Semi-Finals: Puerto Rico v Japan and Netherlands v Dominican Republic

Commentators: Matt Vasgersian and Jim Kaat, with Tom Verducci reporting

Final: Puerto Rico v Dominican Republic

Commentators: Bob Costas and Jim Kaat, with Tom Verducci reporting


The commentators for the MLB Network's coverage of the non-United States based pools (A, B, C and 1) were provided by MLB International (and were broadcast on-site).

For Pool D, Pool 2 and the Finals, MLB International's commentaries (which I suspect ESPN America may have taken) came from Charley Steiner and Rick Sutcliffe.

In the above post, in the Second Round section Pools A and B should read Pools 1 and 2. That should clear up the footnote to those left non-plused by the earlier typos.

With the Major League Baseball season less than two weeks away now, there are to be some changes to ESPN's commentary line-up for their regular weekly games. It has already been confirmed that John Kruk will be replacing the outgoing new Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona as the third man with Dan Shulman and Orel Hershiser in ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball booth, but there looks to be more commentary changes in the offing.

Last month, Rick Sutcliffe tweeted that Dave O'Brien will be joining Aaron Boone and him as part of the Monday Night Baseball commentary team this season. This could be a straight swap between Dave and Sean McDonough, who has been the lead voice of MNB over the past two years, with Sean moving over to Wednesday Night Baseball with Nomar Garciaparra. However, Jon Sciambi (who is ESPN Radio's Saturday Game of the Week and Sunday Night Baseball commentator) has tweeted that he will be doing a "good amount of Wednesdays on TV" this year, so it might be a case of Jon and Sean (or someone else) sharing WNB commentary duties in 2013.

Thanks for that information.

I'm not looking forward to Kruk joining SNB. I think Shulman's terrific and Hershiser's pretty good, while Francona, for someone with minimal broadcasting experience prior to 2012 (I don't remember him doing anything before that,other than two games in the ALCS in 2011 when Tim McCarver was ill), slotted in effortlessly and was really good to listen to. Kruk, however, is really poor. He speaks in cliché and platitude and I don't expect this to change when he moves from the Baseball Tonight studio to the commentary booth.

Friday 22nd March - BBC Two Wales and BBCi

Scrum V Live: Ospreys v Newport Gwent Dragons

Ross Harries presented from the Liberty Stadium alongside Kingsley Jones and Alex Cuthbert, with Sean Holley in the analysis truck

Commentators: Gareth Charles and Stuart Davies

Red button commentators: Rick O'Shea, Gareth Llewellyn and Paul Williams with the RedZone; Lyn Davies and Dafydd Jones in Welsh

Reporter: Phil Steele

I've been watching the football tonight so don't know this for certain, but according to Twitter BBC Two Northern Ireland's coverage of Edinburgh v Ulster was on Freeview's Red Button rather than Scrum V.

Yes it was.

BBC Two NI never showed the rugby tonight, it was only available on the Red Button (I assume it is because Stephen Watson, Mark Sidebottom, Michael McNamee and Joel Taggart were all due to be at Windsor Park for the NI v Russia match).

I caught a bit of it but was watching Scotland v Wales, so did they had studio presentation or was it just the match with Jim Neilly and Ryan Constable on commentary as usually when BBC NI show an Ulster Match on the freeview red button it is only commentary

I wouldn't know about that.

Treviso V Cardiff Blues (RaboDirect Pro 12 RU)

S4C - Gareth Roberts studio host with Emyr Lewis and Brynmor Williams as guests, with commentary from Dr. Gwyn Jones and Gareth Davies. Gareth Rhys Owen was pitchside reporter. English language red button commentary came from Gareth Charles and Tom Shanklin.

From memory it was just coverage of the match and Jim Neilly commentated on his own

IAAF World Cross Country Championships, Bydgoszcz

Tim Hutchings (recently joined the twitterati) and Martin Gillingham for British Eurosport 2 (HD)

Thanks for the reply. Usually that is what BBC NI do when they cover an Ulster away match and it isn't on BBC Two NI


Over on BBC Two it was Jonathan Edwards presenting and commentary from Steve Cram & Paula Radcliffe off tube in Salford as Paula in the studio before and they showed Cram on screen before commentary