Farewell George - When will we see your like again?

Black Menorca · 21-03-2015 3:13pm #1

Going to miss Hook so much. The 'new breed' are either looking after their future Irish management prospects (O'Shea) or too close to the players (Shaggy, ROG) to call it as they see it.

Sterile, inoffensive punditry. We may as well b e watching ITV during an England football international.

mfceiling · 21-03-2015 3:24pm

So you prefer an old buffon who doesn't have much of a clue about the modern game and throws outdated soundbites to get a reaction.

I'll prefer to listen to pundits who know what they are talking about and have an idea about the modern game.

Each to their own.

WinnyThePoo · 21-03-2015 3:28pm

George Hook makes me want to turn off RTE and go over to BBC.

Black Menorca · 21-03-2015 3:38pm

mfceiling wrote: »

So you prefer an old buffon who doesn't have much of a clue about the modern game and throws outdated soundbites to get a reaction.

I'll prefer to listen to pundits who know what they are talking about and have an idea about the modern game.

Each to their own.

Clean shaven, image obsessed, not wanting to rock the IRFU boat yes men is the biggest turn off of all.

tanko · 21-03-2015 4:13pm

Good riddance to the old fool.

mfceiling · 21-03-2015 4:19pm

Black Menorca wrote: »

Clean shaven, image obsessed, not wanting to rock the IRFU boat yes men is the biggest turn off of all.

As opposed to a 73 year old man with ugly ties and talks about players and games that took place in the 50's...a real turn on:rolleyes:

sydthebeat · 21-03-2015 4:28pm

I won't miss him.

I'll still tune into his radio show, but i won't miss him on rte

Black Menorca · 21-03-2015 4:31pm

mfceiling wrote: »

As opposed to a 73 year old man with ugly ties and talks about players and games that took place in the 50's...a real turn on:rolleyes:

Classy ageism there.

IRFU drones like Shaggy and O'Shea will bore us all into submission...

Benny Cake · 21-03-2015 4:38pm

Rogs a better pundit than sexton

irishbucsfan · 21-03-2015 4:44pm

Black Menorca wrote: »

Classy ageism there.

IRFU drones like Shaggy and O'Shea will bore us all into submission...

Why on earth would Conor O'Shea be an IRFU drone, they never employed him in his life?

icdg · 21-03-2015 8:29pm

I hadn't realised Tom McGuirk was retiring too. Did I miss that or was it just being kept quiet? Presumably Daire O'Brien will replace.

MJohnston · 21-03-2015 8:31pm

Black Menorca wrote: »

Going to miss Hook so much. The 'new breed' are either looking after their future Irish management prospects (O'Shea) or too close to the players (Shaggy, ROG) to call it as they see it.

Sterile, inoffensive punditry. We may as well b e watching ITV during an England football international.

Nonsense imo, RoG and O'Shea are fantastic pundits, and when they're controversial they can actually back it up with substance unlike Hook.

walshb · 21-03-2015 8:31pm

An absolute horror. The most anti Irish pundit I have ever come across. Not even on his last day could he muster up any bit of praise for what happened today. Good riddance, and a terrible analyst to boot. His own analysis revolved around making excuses for us winning. That was it. Useless.

WoollyRedHat · 21-03-2015 8:32pm

icdg wrote: »

I hadn't realised Tom McGuirk was retiring too. Did I miss that or was it just being kept quiet? Presumably Daire O'Brien will replace.

It seemed like it by the montage they had at the end alright. A touching one it has to be said regardless of your opinions of George... Rte always do a great montage when it comes to rugby. Anyone know what was the song playing over it?

irishbucsfan · 21-03-2015 8:32pm

icdg wrote: »

I hadn't realised Tom McGuirk was retiring too. Did I miss that or was it just being kept quiet? Presumably Daire O'Brien will replace.

It was a known thing but much less song and dance made of it.

mr. pleasant · 21-03-2015 8:34pm

Could have been a year or three earlier, but I guess it's really hard to let go of a job like that.

Celly Smunt · 21-03-2015 8:34pm

Would like to see him replaced by opposition pundits ti get a balanced view of things.

walshb · 21-03-2015 8:38pm

Black Menorca wrote: »

Clean shaven, image obsessed, not wanting to rock the IRFU boat yes men is the biggest turn off of all.

And Hook isn't close to the opposite of that. He's plain anti Irish rugby. That is it. He offers no insight whatsoever. No matter how we play he cannot stomach us doing well.

corny · 21-03-2015 8:38pm

George had a mandate to be provocative. Not my cup of tea but i wouldn't hold it against him.

"Alright" and "Rugby Football" on the other hand. His insufferable questions and and constant interruptions i won't miss.

chupacabra · 21-03-2015 8:39pm

Benny Cake wrote: »

Rogs a better pundit than sexton

Uh excuse me. ROG an above international pundit.

padser · 21-03-2015 8:42pm

He is essentially a professional troll. The man would utter anything if he thought it would get a reaction from people.

Case in point is his recent comments re Payne which were disgusting and have no place in a professional studio. To be fair, Shaggy called him up on them but comments like that are purely designed to shock and create controversy.

I'll tune in far more often next yr to RTE commentary.

Bizarrely, he actually does a reasonable job on current affairs on the radio.

wp_rathead · 21-03-2015 8:42pm

icdg wrote: »

I hadn't realised Tom McGuirk was retiring too. Did I miss that or was it just being kept quiet? Presumably Daire O'Brien will replace.

ugh

Neil3030 · 21-03-2015 8:43pm

I certainly won't miss our national broadcaster completely undermining heroic days in Irish sport by making every game about the pantomime reactions of one man. Good bye, good luck, but time for a new approach please.

whatever_ · 21-03-2015 8:48pm

tanko wrote: »

Good riddance to the old fool.

Agreed. Well done, Ireland, you deserved the championship because you beat England in Dublin.

However, England produced the performance of the championship today, and in the process, scored almost as many tries as Ireland did in the entire tournament.

As a paid up member of the "chip on each shoulder brigade" Hook is unable to acknowledge that. Bring on a younger, more enlightened, generation.

long_b · 21-03-2015 8:51pm

Anyone got a link to the montage?

blinding · 21-03-2015 8:52pm

I hope Rte also get rid of Dunphy from the football soon.

Hook and Dunphy made careers out of saying controversial stuff and waffling on about it regardless of how dumb it was.

How the Irish people have listened to two motor mouths spouting rubbish for so long is a mystery to me.

TheCitizen · 21-03-2015 8:52pm

Black Menorca wrote: »

Going to miss Hook so much. The 'new breed' are either looking after their future Irish management prospects (O'Shea) or too close to the players (Shaggy, ROG) to call it as they see it.

Sterile, inoffensive punditry. We may as well b e watching ITV during an England football international.

Not a huge fan of George Hook on his radio shows, but he always spoke his mind on the rugby analysis on RTE. Maybe he wasn't always right, but he gave his own views.

A lot of the more recent recruits on RTE - O'Shea, Shane Horgan and others - sound like insiders looking for IRFU jobs or ERFU jobs.

Bridge93 · 21-03-2015 8:55pm

whatever_ wrote: »

Agreed. Well done, Ireland, you deserved the championship because you beat England in Dublin.

However, England produced the performance of the championship today, and in the process, scored almost as many tries as Ireland did in the entire tournament.

As a paid up member of the "chip on each shoulder brigade" Hook is unable to acknowledge that. Bring on a younger, more enlightened, generation.

They may have put in the attacking performance of the competition but they conceded 35 points at home. You are putting yourself at a huge disadvantage doing that. They scored almost as many tries today as Ireland all comp but they conceded as many today as Ireland all comp. Won't be good enough come WC time.

whatever_ · 21-03-2015 8:56pm

tanko wrote: »

Good riddance to the old fool.

Agreed. Well done, Ireland, you deserved the championship because you beat England in Dublin.

However, England produced the performance of the championship today, and in the process, scored almost as many tries as Ireland did in the entire tournament.

As a paid up member of the "chip on each shoulder brigade" Hook is unable to acknowledge that. Bring on a younger, more enlightened, generation.

walshb · 21-03-2015 8:58pm

TheCitizen wrote: »

Not a huge fan of George Hook on his radio shows, but he always spoke his mind on the rugby analysis on RTE. Maybe he wasn't always right, but he gave his own views.

A lot of the more recent recruits on RTE - O'Shea, Shane Horgan and others - sound like insiders looking for IRFU jobs or ERFU jobs.

Don't agree. His own views were pretty much anti the team no matter what. I doubt he even believed them himself. People keep mentioning honesty and controversy. It's nothing to do with that. It's anti us winning. Take the match against England. His best contribution after a brilliant win was that England stank and were hopeless. Not an ounce of praise for us, or why maybe England "stank." He actually said that the manner of our win offended him. He cannot analyse the team because he is far too preoccupied with criticising the team and making excuses for our success.

mfceiling · 21-03-2015 8:59pm

TheCitizen wrote: »

Not a huge fan of George Hook on his radio shows, but he always spoke his mind on the rugby analysis on RTE. Maybe he wasn't always right, but he gave his own views.

A lot of the more recent recruits on RTE - O'Shea, Shane Horgan and others - sound like insiders looking for IRFU jobs or ERFU jobs.

Seriously, do you read the papers or keep up to date with rugby in general?

O'Shea is the Director of Rugby with Harlequins - I doubt very much that the English Rugby chiefs are watching Rte to see what Conor O'Shea is saying - maybe we can employ him if he doesn't speak his mind.

Horgan is studying to be a solicitor and again I doubt that he is watching what he says on Rte to land a "plum" job with the IRFU.

Dempsey · 21-03-2015 9:00pm

The panel will be more sterile in future. I doubt we'll ever see a disagreement again! I'd give credit to someone that speaks their mind, whether its considered right or wrong, over people that play it safe with cliched PR coached analysis.

Hermy · 21-03-2015 9:01pm

Delighted he's gone - he has become a parody of himself.
Much sooner the good-natured and informed comment and opinion of the likes of Connor O'Shea than the ill-tempered, ill-informed and downright ignorant ranting of George Hook any day!

Say Your Number · 21-03-2015 9:03pm

I think George did make some goods points at times, often times after a defeat I would agree with what he said, but the melodramatic 'Ireland are useless and are going to be hammered today' nonsense really was beyond tedious, I renember him being more measured with his comments when he commentated on the 2007 World Cup on Newstalk.

TheCitizen · 21-03-2015 9:04pm

mfceiling wrote: »

Seriously, do you read the papers or keep up to date with rugby in general?

O'Shea is the Director of Rugby with Harlequins - I doubt very much that the English Rugby chiefs are watching Rte to see what Conor O'Shea is saying - maybe we can employ him if he doesn't speak his mind.

Horgan is studying to be a solicitor and again I doubt that he is watching what he says on Rte to land a "plum" job with the IRFU.

They sound boring as hell to me. Sound like they don't want to upset anyone in the Irish camp or Irish rugby set up in general.

MJohnston · 21-03-2015 9:10pm

TheCitizen wrote: »

They sound boring as hell to me. Sound like they don't want to upset anyone in the Irish camp or Irish rugby set up in general.

Or maybe its just been that there hasn't been a huge amount to negatively critique this season...

walshb · 21-03-2015 9:18pm

TheCitizen wrote: »

They sound boring as hell to me. Sound like they don't want to upset anyone in the Irish camp or Irish rugby set up in general.

So slate and criticise for the sake of it? That's pathetic. And that is Hook for pretty much his entire punditry team.

TheCitizen · 21-03-2015 9:19pm

MJohnston wrote: »

Or maybe its just been that there hasn't been a huge amount to negatively critique this season...

Ireland winning back to back 6 Nations is a great achievement. Still, it took them 50 years or so to win a Grand Slam when they won it a few years back. They really blew the Grand Slam this season especially.

The current set up under Schmidt look to be in good nick, so maybe they'll come back stronger again for the World Cup and next season's 6 Nations. Schmidt may be poached though before next season.

Great to win the 6 Nations Championship again, but really should've beat Wales last week.

Dempsey · 21-03-2015 9:23pm

walshb wrote: »

So slate and criticise for the sake of it? That's pathetic. And that is Hook for pretty much his entire punditry team.

Seems you want to argue with everyone in this thread that has a differing opinion to yours. The spirit of George Hook lives on!

TheCitizen · 21-03-2015 9:25pm

walshb wrote: »

So slate and criticise for the sake of it? .

No. But if you're watching it on TV, the last thing you want is happy clappers analysing the match. When you're at the match, be a happy clapper.

force eleven · 21-03-2015 9:34pm

Hook was only really happy when Ireland lost.

Swan Curry · 21-03-2015 9:34pm

I'm happier about McGurk going than Hook, Hook's an old fool but McGurk's demeanour is just plain unpleasant.

walshb · 21-03-2015 9:37pm

Dempsey wrote: »

Seems you want to argue with everyone in this thread that has a differing opinion to yours. The spirit of George Hook lives on!

Debating is what the forum is about.

George hook never debated. He simply slated for the sake of it. There's a huge difference. As mentioned, only chirpy and in form when we lost. A horror!

Dempsey · 21-03-2015 9:43pm

walshb wrote: »

Debating is what the forum is about.

George hook never debated. He simply slated for the sake of it. There's a huge difference. As mentioned, only chirpy and in form when we lost. A horror!

Absolute drivel. Now who's being controversial for the sake of it! :rolleyes:

Eugene Norman · 21-03-2015 9:53pm

Swan Curry wrote: »

I'm happier about McGurk going than Hook, Hook's an old fool but McGurk's demeanour is just plain unpleasant.

I don't agree but he interrupts at ridiculous times. Hook's a bilious old fool. He always tries to sound profound by saying something like "in the modern era bla bla bla". It's always the modern era. Unless you go on to define what you mean by that it's just throat clearing.

I'd still like to have RTE get the WC though.

StewartGriffin · 21-03-2015 9:56pm

The great thing about George Hook is, if he read this thread this evening, he wouldn't give a flying f**k about what anyone says about him.

That's a VERY rare quality. Especially in this age of image and online persona.

Very few have that ability.

nc19 · 21-03-2015 9:56pm

WinnyThePoo wrote:

George Hook makes me want to turn off RTE and go over to BBC.

Rte make me want to switch to BBC. ..

irishbucsfan · 21-03-2015 9:58pm

StewartGriffin wrote: »

The great thing about George Hook is, if he read this thread this evening, he wouldn't give a flying f**k about what anyone says about him.

That's a VERY rare quality. Especially in this age of image and online persona.

Very few have that ability.

Well good for him, having that quality.

Unfortunately the ability to provide accurate or insightful rugby analysis is not a quality he does possess, and that is slightly more important for someone working as an analyst on television.

However I like him on a personal level, he came to our club a number of times and he was charming and good fun, and I hope he's happy in whatever he goes on to do. I just hope RTE don't feel the need to replace him directly.

Swan Curry · 21-03-2015 10:01pm

StewartGriffin wrote: »

The great thing about George Hook is, if he read this thread this evening, he wouldn't give a flying f**k about what anyone says about him.

That's a VERY rare quality. Especially in this age of image and online persona.

Very few have that ability.

I guarantee you if he read this thread tonight he'd spend the first half hour of his Monday show complaining about it

ixus · 21-03-2015 10:13pm

What is it with RTE presenters cutting across panelists or guests. Drives me mental.

Jackman, O'Gara and O'Shea have provided some fascinating insight into the game. It's what the majority of people want.

If they're not on I just pause game so I can fast forward through half time.

Cienciano · 21-03-2015 10:17pm

walshb wrote: »

An absolute horror. The most anti Irish pundit I have ever come across. Not even on his last day could he muster up any bit of praise for what happened today. Good riddance, and a terrible analyst to boot. His own analysis revolved around making excuses for us winning. That was it. Useless.

Neil3030 wrote: »

I certainly won't miss our national broadcaster completely undermining heroic days in Irish sport by making every game about the pantomime reactions of one man. Good bye, good luck, but time for a new approach please.

These 2 posts sum him up perfectly. He absolutely hated giving ireland credit for anything and he was always much happier slating us after a loss than pointing out positives after a win. He would suck the happyness out of you (that sounds bad lol!) with his negativity even after a win if it wasn't by a big margin. And even if we did win it was never us, it was always poor opposition

Farewell George - When will we see your like again?

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