That's so Wales!

No rugby today, well not quite, as I went to see 'Bred in Heaven' at the New Theatre, Cardiff. Rugby and film aficionados will know of the cult Welsh film, Grand Slam; well the play was a sort of sequel as it had the great character Madlwyn Novello Pughe. It was hilarious, I never stopped laughing all the way through and it was a great afternoon out, a nice change from the usual Saturday routine of watching the mighty All Blacks, Neath. If you get a chance to see the play I thoroughly recommend it, you won't regret it; I only hope it all comes true on 23rd October.

For those of you watching the rugby from this morning, you will know the title to today's blip comes from a comment made by the ITV commentator, Nick Mullins, as England scored their winning try "that is so England". I think most people agree that the ITV coverage has not been great this World Cup, but it got me thinking about sports commentary in general, where are the great sports commentators now?

When I was growing up we were so lucky, for rugby union we had the late, great Bill McLaren, for rugby league we had Eddie Waring and Ray French, football was John Motson and Barry Davies, cricket was Richie Benaud, tennis was Dan Maskell and horse racing was Peter O'Sullivan, and there are a few more I could name as well.

I think the difference with all those named above compared to ITV and the rest of sports commentary today, is their fairness, their unbiased approach even when they may have had their favourites. They let the pictures tell the story and just added their bit. So has sports commentary gone downhill or is it something more? Is it more to do with the fact that sport is on 24 hours a day on various channels and that we don't get to build relationships with commentators like we used to?

Whatever the reason I don?t think we'll see the like of Bill and co. again, and for that I'm sad!