George Hook

thebaz

is anyone else getting sick of George Hooks anti Irish tirade ?
i thought he'd never shut up about the Welsh injustice last week , due to the referee impartiality -- i switched to bbc .

Chucky the tree

He was no worse then Tom Mcguirk who was having a right old whinge about the decision. He knows absolute nothing about rugby, a complete joke.

EdgarAllenPoo

He does annoy me sometimes but it is better than listening to the bbc commentary who really see disinterested in everything but the English team's performance.

Cheers to RTE by the way, thanks to them listing which commentators were calling which matches I managed to avoid Ryle Nugent on Saturday, too bad it's always the Enlgish matches I have to switch over to on BBC. If you think RTE is biased towards Ireland when they play you should have heard the BBC commentary for the last two Enlgand games.

Creamy Goodness

it's his opinion take it or leave it. we've all got one and your's is your own, let him have his.

mike65

George is the ying to McGurks yang.

Mike.

EdgarAllenPoo

To be honest I would prefer if it was only O'Shea and Pope giving the analysis, the other two just seem to concentrate on proving each other wrong and getting a dig in.

athtrasna

Give me Hook over Ryle Nugent any time! If I particularly dislike the BBC commentators as an alternative, I switch on the radio and take their commentary with RTE pictures.

EdgarAllenPoo

The guy( I can't remember his name) who did commentary on the Ireland A game sounded like he was half asleep. RTE really do have a deficit when it comes to good rugby commentators.

christophicus

mike65 wrote:

George is the ying to McGurks yang.

Mike.

True , true.

I think he just likes playing devils advocate and inviting controversy.

Also I think he is inately pessimistic, and so be saying they are going to loose/it will be tough to win , he feels that he is not jinxing the team, and also, if teh y do loose he will not be as dissappointed.

bookiebasher

nice french tie the gob****e had on as well

themonk

bookiebasher wrote:

nice french tie the gob****e had on as well

well said

george hook is to a cheeseburger what mustard is to a hot dog

Dave!

Yeah I'm getting fed up with his nay-saying TBH

Bettyboo2u

GDM wrote:

He does annoy me sometimes but it is better than listening to the bbc commentary who really see disinterested in everything but the English team's performance.

Cheers to RTE by the way, thanks to them listing which commentators were calling which matches I managed to avoid Ryle Nugent on Saturday, too bad it's always the Enlgish matches I have to switch over to on BBC. If you think RTE is biased towards Ireland when they play you should have heard the BBC commentary for the last two Enlgand games.

I thought i was the only one who could not stand Ryle Nugent. He is by far the worst rugby commentator i have ever heard. It is a shame RTE use him as i enjoy the RTE panel but by God Ryle Nugent gets on my nerves, i turn over to the BBC before the match starts so i don't have to listen to him.

walrusgumble

hookie aint the worst. if three men have to analyise a game and give their predictions, then i would like to see a balanced discussion. i would pay feck all heed to the bbc pundits who appear to be afraid to say anything out of line. you look at the soccer punditary, remember the world cup 02 and eamonn dunphy's anti irish rants?

i was never fond of his dislike for someone like david humphreys years ago though.and he never says anything decent about munster and ireland, but hey least it gives us something to talk about

i agree with lasst post, i turned over to bbc to avoid ryle nugget, he messed up when the prez came out, thinking the anthems would start up. plank

woods wasnt pleased on bbc, he was right with what he said at half time about the lack of attitude in the team, thankfully eddie sorted that out in the second half, bar the last few seconds of stupidity. ireland handed the game to the french, terrible handling errors today.oh well

Dempsey

thebaz wrote:

is anyone else getting sick of George Hooks anti Irish tirade ?
i thought he'd never shut up about the Welsh injustice last week , due to the referee impartiality -- i switched to bbc .

Hook was dead right about last week, we ROBBED wales, and if you cannot see that, you dont have aclue about rugby. If it was Ireland in their position, some people here would piss and moan like the manner of the french victory against us

Switch to the BBC and shut up

Sangre

I like the Hook/Pope/O Shea combo. They actually all know something about the game, while some clearly have certain views at least they back them up.

Can't stand any of the Irish match commentators though.

Creamy Goodness

don't really mind the commentators that much all bar george hamiliton, just reminds me of how exciting he got when he used to do the F1. ie. not very excited at all.

Erin Go Brath

Hooks ranting is legendary. Hook and Pope complement each other like Dunphy and Giles in the Soccer. One straight man, and one slightly deranged man if you like!

Wouldnt be a huge fan of the commentary team. Is Tony Ward related to Geordan Murphy or something? Firstly he blamed Horan for the mistackle that let France in for the first try. Later, he blamed Easterby for a shockingly loose pass, that could've let France free for a breakaway try......again Murphy. I think I'm fussy when it comes to commentators though. I used to always love hearing Bill McLarens commentary, since he went, nobody is that great on any channel, rte, bbc, sky or setanta.

crybaby

he was getting very annoying, what was even worse though was his lack of criticism O'Gara when he was playing so terribly for alot of the match since he never shuts up about how an out half controls the match but I suppose he is pretty entertaining but in terms of analysis Pope is by far the best of the lot

tony ward was pretty good yesterday I thought, you could tell he was getting a bit emotional towards the end when he looked like we were going to win and in fairness he corrected himself in regards to both of those incidents

thebaz

Dempsey wrote:

Hook was dead right about last week, we ROBBED wales, and if you cannot see that, you dont have aclue about rugby. If it was Ireland in their position, some people here would piss and moan like the manner of the french victory against us

Switch to the BBC and shut up

i don't think we robbed Wales -- so i must be clueless then about rugby --- oh and i'll shut up too as you nicely put it !

Diamondmaker

The Hooke Popie and McGurj combo is on my opinion and ( ouside of American sports panels ) the best and most entertaining out there. they compliment and contrast each other wonderfully and no one takes Hookies insane rants too seriouly when needs be.

he DOES very much annoy me when he goes out of his way to make trouble and cause scandal.

Last night on Sky news he "the better team won" was he seriosly only looking at the 1st half??

Ireland were definitely the better team over the 79 minutes. The came back strong in the second half and showed great character to domintae the French.
The french looked beaten for long periods in the 2nd half. Their lap of honour shows how much that victory meant to them and any french fans I met were definitely elated at the victory in a way that comes when they did not exppect it.

Webbs

Diamondmaker wrote:

The Hooke Popie and McGurj combo is on my opinion and ( ouside of American sports panels ) the best and most entertaining out there. they compliment and contrast each other wonderfully and no one takes Hookies insane rants too seriouly when needs be.

he DOES very much annoy me when he goes out of his way to make trouble and cause scandal.

Last night on Sky news he "the better team won" was he seriosly only looking at the 1st half??

Ireland were definitely the better team over the 79 minutes. The came back strong in the second half and showed great character to domintae the French.
The french looked beaten for long periods in the 2nd half. Their lap of honour shows how much that victory meant to them and any french fans I met were definitely elated at the victory in a way that comes when they did not exppect it.

I agree with you about the Hook Pope combo they are a breath of fresh air after having to listen to years of BBC blandness. I think Hook is one of the few pundits who really speaks his mind and is usually right in his assessments. Thank god because McGurk seems to watch a different game to everyone else!

Including the 'better team one' watch the game again, through a combination of luck, desperate defence (sometimes not so legal!) and poor kicking France should have been at least 12-15 points clear by half time. Ireland for all their guts in coming back and scoring a well taken try, after that didn't really look like scoring from anything but penalties. Not sure on Stats but they didn't make that many line breaks or really put consistent pressure on France in the 22

If you had been a Frenchman you would have been gutted if you'd lost that especially after the first half.

tHE vAGGABOND

hook and pope rock - and I love the fact the clearly dont like each other

Its soooo much better than the BBC love in, where everyone is great and you cant slag anyone off.

I dont mind anyone slagging Ireland [or anyone] off, if they can back it up. The way you would talk about it with your mates in the pub or something. It you want a blanket blinkered 'Ireland are great, everyone else is crap' go to the BBC

Diamondmaker

tHE vAGGABOND wrote:

hook and pope rock - and I love the fact the clearly dont like each other

Its soooo much better than the BBC love in, where everyone is great and you cant slag anyone off.

Thats not true at all, they are good friends. Sure why else would Hooke have invited him to do the Hooke and Popey show on his own show on Newstalk for the rpevious few years.

Popey cant do it anymore due to his dodgy business committments in the foriegn property market;)

tHE vAGGABOND

Thats not true at all, they are good friends. Sure why else would Hooke have invited him to do the Hooke and Popey show

I have seen Pope asked straight out several times if he likes Hook, if they are mates and he has always said no. That they dont hang out together and have been to each other's gaff etc..

They are a good double act, which is why they work together a lot, think an older and larger ant and dec

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

spanner

Dempsey wrote:

Hook was dead right about last week, we ROBBED wales, and if you cannot see that, you dont have aclue about rugby. If it was Ireland in their position, some people here would piss and moan like the manner of the french victory against us

Switch to the BBC and shut up

living in wexford we get the welsh tv and belive you me they were pissing and moaning about it, as so should we when the french do it to us, doesnt change anything

its our right to piss and moan when its done to us but surely we dont have to do it when we do it to them

Dempsey

He's analysing performances what else is he suppose to say?

PeadarofAodh

I quite like Hook actually. I think you have to take what he says with a pinch of salt though - the whole reason he's got so famous is purely down to the fact that he can be a bit over the top, much like Dunphy, although I think he's quite a bit more intelligent at the same time.

I generally don't have any problem with commentators being a bit biased - sure they're Irish, or English in the BBC's case, and would naturally get quite excited/pissed off when their team are doing well/badly. If you go abroad and listen to European commentators during football matches they'll be going wild for their team - in contrast I think the commentators in Ireland and Britain are pretty reserved!

Marshy

The Scientist wrote:

Hook is a superb analyst. Although he can be fiery and bigotted, most of his views are correct. Much like dunphy.

Q. How do you know when George Hook is talkin out of his arse?

A. His lips are moving.

Ghost Train

I enjoy Hooks opinions, he's pretty hard on Ireland sometimes but I think he's just calling the way he sees it and he not always right and he's not always wrong. I do find him funny the way he can exagerate or be harsh on the irish team and the way they play, but it's just the way he is.

It's interesting too how the history between himself and Eddie O'Sullivan can come across, sometimes it's positive background information, other times it sounds like he might hold a grudge against him for some reason or shows some bias. He also seems to build ROG up a bit too much sometimes, but mostly I find the man entertaining and the rte panel do a good job i think. Mc Girk plays the guy who's just an irish fan, Hook plays the critic mostly and Pope and the other guests seem to add some slightly more balanced (expert?) opinions

thebaz

Dempsey wrote:

He's analysing performances what else is he suppose to say?

He could be a bit positive about Irish rugby -- the strides we have made in 10 years is unreal , when beating Scotland was deemed a success , and losing to Italy was expected -- when Dunphy was moaning , Ireland were playing a route one game -- Ireland now play an attractive style of rugby , scoring class tries , and are a serious match for anyone - we even ran the All Blacks close.

Dempsey

I'm sure he'd agree that the rugby has come on a long way, I doubt anyone could deny it but expectations of Ireland, in Rugby, are that of a top 5 team in the world. I suppose people have forgotten the "baron years" very easily and maybe taking all this progress too lightly.

The flaws he sees in the Irish team arent figments of his imagination, but the thing is, the weaknesses he sees sometimes aren't fully exploited by other teams because we are aware of those weaknesses too and we protect them when teams try to exploit them.

Macy

Bettyboo2u wrote:

I thought i was the only one who could not stand Ryle Nugent. He is by far the worst rugby commentator i have ever heard.

There is no way that he is as bad as Hamilton, who is totally clueless to the laws of the game, never mind tatics. I don't mind Nugent tbh, but maybe he just looks fecking good compared to Hamilton.

thebaz

Macy wrote:

There is no way that he is as bad as Hamilton, who is totally clueless to the laws of the game, never mind tatics. I don't mind Nugent tbh, but maybe he just looks fecking good compared to Hamilton.

Fred Cogley is my least favorite , thought he had retired, but hes back doing the schools on Setanta (his son runs it i think)

madds

Taken from Hook's 6 Nations review column on rte.ie:

For the first time in my television career, I went out of the studio and stood on the terraces and sang Amhrán na bhFiann. I was incredibly emotional. I didn't believe I could be that emotional at a rugby match. I think it was the most emotional I have ever been watching Ireland.

I enjoy listening to Hook and his opinions. I like hearing someone who more often than not comes down off the fence. That I mostly agree with what he has to say is neither here nor there.

Interestingly enough, last week there were columns there from Hook, Pope, AND Nugent on rte.ie. This week I can only see second articles from Hook and Pope. Nugent's first article in the build up to the Wales match was just a regurgitation of everything I had read in the papers over the previous few days.

il gatto

George Hook is the best thing to happen to rugby coverage in Ireland for years. Can we name another regular pundit who got people talking as much? He helps bring viewers because some people just like watching him rant and sulk. It's great entertainment. Sometimes I totally disagree with him, sometimes I agree, and sometimes I hate him for voicing those fears hidden deep down within that we'd rather not confront.
I also believe I am on record elsewhere (more than once I'm sure) stating my deep loathing of Ryle Nugent, his voice, his comments and his consistant use of the words "has" and "have". Twat.

dtpc191991

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5QJXRbmQ8

As much as I disagree with Hook's negativity I really have grown to appreciate the man after watching this. He does genuinely love the sport and he actually said he enjoys getting it wrong. He states that it's what makes the sport fun. Watch this and you might get to see different side of George Hook!!

Grimebox

dtpc191991 wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5QJXRbmQ8

As much as I disagree with Hook's negativity I really have grown to appreciate the man after watching this. He does genuinely love the sport and he actually said he enjoys getting it wrong. He states that it's what makes the sport fun. Watch this and you might get to see different side of George Hook!!

Nice try George Hook...

dtpc191991

Grimebox wrote: »

Nice try George Hook...

Hahaha....

Chavways

The threads 5 years old....