Bill O'Herlihy: Whats his game?

10000maniacs

Tonight after Ireland won the gold medal, O'Herlihy points out that it is Irelands first gold medal since the Boxing medal in 1992.
After Eamonn Coughlan put him straight about Michelle Smiths' three golds in Atlanta in 1996, O'Herlihy gets annoyed and defensive.
Is it RTE's policy to wipe Michelle Smiths' achevements from the slate or is it just another forgetful gaffe from O'Herlihy.
She did actually win 3 gold medals and never failed any olympic drug tests after the races.

elvis2002

yah i seen that too, he was talking some ****e too about sport and stuff saying that this is going to give equisterin a big lift in ireland, he couldn't take the answers he got from the panel.

I wasn't too won over by the fact that they call this olympic venture a success either as we didn't win anything in the events that count in my opinion. I think its great to see us win a gold an everything but in athlethics, the one that people become famous for, we are non existent.

Yah, and michelle was never pronounce guilty as a drug cheat! She was banned for doing something to the sample. Balls really.

acid

Every time i see Bill O'Herlihy on tv I'm reminded of apres match....



live!!

mike65

Bill O'Herlihy may not be much cop and I did'nt see the incident but he should have challanged the idea that Smiths medals should stand as an achievment.

She cheated full stop.

Mike.

irishgeo

Did they actually take her medals off her?

Big Ears

'Okey Doke , and Loive to Orlando Florida ' .

When he challenged the pundits during Euro 2004 , they all gave him a mighty roasting towards the end of the tournament .

To be honest he was taking ****e and deserved it , they made him look like a fool .
Especially because its not very often you get Eamonn Dunphy , John Giles and Liam Brady to all agree .

I think Ryle Nugent should probably replace him .
I hope I never have to see Peter Colins presenting a match on television again .
He could never bring up an interesting topic , only stating the obvious .

AngelofFire

O`Herilhy is right. That cheater and deciever does not deserve any recognition. It wasn`t an achievment, the only thing she achieved was in giving irish people the false impression that she was a sporting hero and that she actually had achieved something, the medals count for nothing. If she hadnt of been on drugs she would have been average at that tournamnet and a more deserving competitor would have won them through sheer athletic performance not by the performance of their pharamacist.

Mossy Monk

agreed, she deserves nothing and all that but

Bill O Herlihy is a spanner and always will be. he is like an amateur

Michael Collins

Bill O'Herlihy doesn't claim to be a know it all, as only fools would. Anytime I've seen the man on TV he always talks common sense. Now fair enough Michelle Smith didn't have the medals taken off her, but why would she suddenly start cheating after winning 3 gold medals, that makes no sense. And if you put 2 and 2 together you can quite logically come up with 4. If you just look at her size increase even, she became significantly better built in a very short amount of time. And then there's WHY would she interfere with a sample?

We should have no time for cheaters, and once they're caught that's it, they're branded a cheater, and rightly so.

Big Ears

Mossy Monk wrote:

he is like an amateur

thats paid money , which would be proffesionel(it would be if I spelt it right ) .

Flukey

Well whatever we may think of her, officially nothing has ever been proved against her. Suspicions have been raised and there was an issue around an alleged tampering with a sample, but she has never actually failed a test.

daveirl

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Pigman II

Agreed! I'm sick of Bill in general and of people who just want to sweep Michelle Smiths achievments under the carpet because it doesn't fit in with our stereotypical image of Irish people as happy-go-lucky underachievers who'll rollover to allcomers and slink thru life on a diet of moral-victories .... just a long as it makes every other country love us.

I watched every single one of Michelle Smiths swims at Atlanta and I can assure you afterwards that Bill was the one wetting himself after each win as tho it was going out of fasion. His exhuberance back then made dobbins victory yesterday look like calm indifference.

She's never been found guilty and never been stripped her medals so as far as I'm concerned they're valid and anyone who uses the quote 'first gold for 12 years' is just self deluded.

O'Herily just typifiess RTEs farcical coverage and attitude anyway! After winning 'our' Gold yesterday RTE choose to drop the 10k final (a trivial event in which an Irish athlete WAS actually competing) in favour of interviewing granddad and footage of people WAITING for the medals presentation. Well done Montrose!

Mossy Monk

idiots also interrupted a soccer match to show a race with no irish participent

Pigman II

Mossy Monk wrote:

idiots also interrupted a soccer match to show a race with no irish participent

That's right!

But then again what's (potentially) the most important soccer match in Irish history worth when put up against a 1500m final with absolutely no Irish involvement? Clearly not much as far as RTE were concerned.

I tell you they wouldn't have switched it if it had been Paul Harrington swinging a golfclub or Munster playing in the 'gerrymander-cup' or whatever its called.

RTE .... geographically D4, mentally D4.

daveirl

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Pigman II

daveirl wrote:

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My interest in golf exposed. I was wondering why he'd put on so much weight since that Eurovision win!

daveirl wrote:

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I don't know. Why don't you ask Gerry Adams next time you see him at an [insert Irish PROVINCE here] vs [insert foriegn town here] game sometime.

sceptre

daveirl wrote:

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Buncombe, Dave. It's where Elbridge Gerry was from.

Flukey

In fairness, there was a huge interest in that race, Irish involvement or not. It turned out to be a very good race too, one of the best of the games. Also they did a split screen, so you could still see the match and it was for only a short period, so there was little if any inconvenience to those watching the match. Had they switched over completely, then yes that would have been a problem.

Big Ears

they switched over completly for a while and other times they had the soccer real tiny in the corner .

and will somebody tell them how to use a split screen(when its appropriate not like on that not) most of the screen was just blue .

super_furry

Shels were losing 3-0 had never really looked like scoring and the game was in its final five minutes. They made the right call by showing the race.

Big Ears

Thats impossible , Deportivo only scored they're third late in injury-time .
and me missed a chance with about 15 minutes to go that could have pulled one back for them (a chance from Jason Byrne that was missed because they showed the race) .


The game was far from over , and this game was bigger than a huge amount of competitive Ireland internationels have been .
RTÉ made the wrong choice and should have showed delayed coverage of the race when the match was over. Anyone with NTL/SKY/Chorus would have watched it properly on BBC anway , so the vast majority of people watching RTÉ 2(Network 2 or whatever) would have wanted to see the soccer .

The Shels game was watched by a lot more people than watched the Man United match from the first leg games , just ilustrating the point of how many people would have wanted to see the soccer.

da_deadman

All I want from sports presenters is a bit of entertainment for the pre-match or half time break. And in that respect, Bill O is one of the better presenters on RTE. He is the best for the football, there is a great rapport with him, Gilesy, Dunphy, and Chippy Brady. What they say is not always true, factual, and may at times be annoying for a lot of people but it is often entertaining to watch. There are many sports shows whose presenters and expert analysts are so boring to listen to, but these guys (when on form) are just as funny as the Apres Match sketches about them.
The other options at rte are terrible. Ryle Nugent has not got a clue about anything and should not be allowed to present any sport show. Peter Collins is just as bad, he is even a bad commentator for Formula 1 alongside David Kennedy (and anyone partnered with Kennedy should sound good but somehow Collins still sounds sh*t). The only other good presenters with rte are the rugby combination of McGurk, Hook, and Pope. Like the football team, they often speak a load of crap, but it's almost always entertaining for the viewer, provided you don't take what they say too seriously.

Chong

Whats worse the two twats commentating on the mens marathon last night insisted that buffoon who ruined Vanderleys chance of winning the race was from the south england rather than from Kerry. In truth they have seen him before and know he is Irish. They would do or say anything to distance themselves from a fool representing our country and try pass the blame on to someone else.

sceptre

Willem D wrote:

a fool representing our country

A fool from our country (and from Kerry). He's representing nothing but the jingly-jangly voices in his head.

Raoul Duke

I've haven't read as much crap as I've read in this thread for a long time. I don't know where to start. First of all da_deadman has been the first to speak some sense.

Someone suggested Ryle Nugent to take over from Bill O'Herlihy!!!! :eek: Now I presume most of you actually watch the english channels attempts at sports punditry. Not one of their hosts approaches Bill. Every other hosts apart from McGurk is just nice, nice, bull****, bull****.... Bill O'Herlihy doesn't pretend to be an expert and he asks mostly intelligent questions from his "experts". He raises issues that other hosts wouldn't touch with a bargepole. Ryle Nugent ...hah!!! Get a brain.

As for Michelle the Belle....she was found guilty of tampering with her sample. Therefore she is a cheat. If people want to continue to believe that it was a once of incident, go ahead, be an idiot. As for "sweeping Michelle Smiths achievments under the carpet" what do you think you're doing by ignoring the fact that she's a proven cheat?

There was even someone giving out about the commentators of the marathon and the fact that they should have owned up to him being Irish and that it was a conspiracy to "distance themselves from a fool representing our country and try pass the blame on to someone else". Would you mind telling me how they would know for a fact just minutes after the incident happened who exactly the guy was? Take your conspiracy theories elsewhere.

And lastly, the 1,500m is a race that lasts only 4 minutes. It is also one of the most looked forward to events in any Olympics. How hard is it to watch a game in split screen for a few minutes? What would you have done if you were Director of Sport at RTE?

Kai

If you ask me Bill was dead right to skip over her as a Gold medalist. Maybe it hasnt been proved she's a drug cheat but in the mind of most people she is. She came from no-where to win 3 golds and a Bronze for god sake, her husband had previously been tested positive for a banned substance (from what i can remember). Does anyone actually belive she wasnt taking performance enhancing drugs during or before the olympics ?

MisterAnarchy

Michelle de Bruins sample was contaminated with alcohol .
However at an appeal and using new technology when this sample was analysed it contained trace samples of a body building steroid .

Bateman

RTE are a public servie broadcaster. I take the point about the split-screen technique being completely amateurish, but then, RTE don't base their programming on what people say on the net, but they do take into account what people say when they actually take the time to TELL them (see thread on sawker forum).

10000maniacs

Oh yes and even the gold medal winning horses are on drugs.