KEY POINTS:
TV3 is standing by its Rugby World Cup commentary team, despite some less than favourable feedback from rugby fans.
A large portion of the 22 pages of reader feedback to the Herald website regarding the commentary line-up has not been glowing.
One reader named Jason Harrison said: "Well,
personally, I've never liked Hamish McKay's commentary.
"He seems the sort that laughs at his own jokes, and his insistence on delivering his 'clever' variations on players' names ('High Rev Kev') gets very tiresome.
"I'm surprised he's so far resisted the urge to say Howlett scored 'Dougie Style' like he did several times a few years ago when TV3 had the end-of-year tour coverage.
"Grant Fox and Andrew Mehrtens are great. McKay and Alan Whetton are pretty God-awful, and Frank Bunce does what he usually does, stumbles his way through whatever it is he's trying to say.
"I guess this is the price we pay for free coverage for all," he said.
Another disgruntled viewer said: "All Hamish McKay could say was [you are] watching the World Cup live on TV3. I wish they would leave the commentary to professionals.
"We all want the ABs to win and we also want to see the other teams play, and not consistently watching replays of the ABs beating second-rate teams."
Another said: "Hamish McKay is a good sports presenter, but not a commentator. It was very boring listening to the commentary the other night."
TV3 spokesman Roger Beaumont said yesterday the channel was happy with the commentary team, and so were a lot of the viewers.
"There's been a couple of criticisms from people who don't like change. There's a good mix of former All Blacks with really strong credibility. Grant Fox has had a lot of positive feedback and so has Andrew Mehrtens. People have really enjoyed his input," he said.
"We've had some people who don't like change and have said they prefer other commentators, but you always get that. We have also had people say they prefer us to other broadcasters' commentators. It's quite a variable response really."
He said some people had complained about the camera angles. "That's out of our hands in terms of the world-wide feed as provided by the host broadcaster out of France.
"There's some wider shots of the field than we are typically used to in this part of the world. But some people have enjoyed the sort of bigger perspective that has given some of the games."
