TIPPING POINT:Although he's largely irrelevant in the greater scheme of things, it might help if just very occasionally, Hook called a game right, writes BRIAN O'CONNOR
AS THE old broad in The Golden Girlsused to say, picture the scene: Listowel races and a venerable lady of impeccable manners and bearing reduced to spitting fury when informed that among her company is The Irish Timesgee-gee scribbler. Neither time nor distance has soothed the memory of how the little old granny informed North Kerry in a baying soprano that I was incapable of tipping shit out of a bucket.
It is a cross of being paid to predict sporting results that one’s meticulously crafted and impeccably logical arguments for selecting “a” over “b” can often be made to look like the ramblings of someone whose shoelaces should be removed.
Of course, the overwhelming triviality of such an occupation rules out sympathy since getting an admittedly piffling sum to work at what many would do for nothing means there isn’t a sports hack on the planet that deserves any.
But an occupational hazard is having to deal with after-the-event-merchants, those omniscient souls whose predictive abilities are correlated to the amount of time elapsed since a contest has wound up.
Coated as they mostly are in cosy anonymity, and freed of any requirement to back up their opinions with anything as mundane as an argument, there isn’t a scribbler alive who hasn’t felt at some stage a horny-handed tap on the shoulder, accompanied by a beery breathed: “Jaysus, ya got that wrong”. And such creatures have managed something that was hitherto unthinkable – empathy for George Hook.
George got it wrong about that Ireland-England match; said the English would win. To those of us who have charted the remorseless inflation in the profile of rugby’s very own Zeppelin, George getting it wrong about the result of a match was not a shock. He always gets it wrong. The Hindenburg was still merrily chugging on its way to New Jersey the last time George got one right.
In fact his unerring ability to pick the wrong option from a field of three – a win for either side or a draw – is rather like an adult learning late in life to ride a bike and being dragged by a magnetic pull towards the one tree on the horizon.
He’s not alone in predicting wrongly. Maybe not as spectacularly as the general who famously proclaimed: “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist-.” However, Margaret Thatcher was never let forget the following pearl: “It will be years – not in my time – before a woman becomes Prime Minister”.
This latest miscalculation though seems to have got on some nerves. Indulgence for Hooky’s reverse savantism appears to be lessening, with one media colleague even asking recently: “If he’s so crap, what is the point of having him on the telly?”
Without wishing to go all “the medium is the message”, it is important to remember that what George actually says is mostly irrelevant: it’s how he says it. The point of George is George. What that says about sports hackery and punditry is a question for another time but blaming Hook for getting it wrong is like blaming an elephant for not being dainty – it misses the point.
And at least he gets it wrong with aplomb, with none of that pussy-footing “on the other hand” stuff. When George gets it wrong, he gets it wrong . . . you know what I mean.
Much more interesting, actually, is the profile George enjoys. It would be fascinating to have a poll on who the most identifiable rugby figure in Ireland right now actually is. In merit terms, it’s a no-brainer. Even the most rigorous rugger-phobe has to admit Brian O’Driscoll is a remarkable exponent of the game that knows no shame when it comes to invading personal space.
But no one personifies the sport more than Hook. That face which, even in moments of comparative ecstasy, manages to look like it has been caught at the bottom of a ruck, couldn’t be more rugger-bugger if it was heartily thwacked across both cheeks by a wet towel.
And that boorishly clubhouse voice has confirmed the prejudices of a couple of generations of Irish sports fans now, with the promise of more to come.
Hook is from central casting in the same way John McCririck conforms to the cartoon cliché of what a bookie is. And never forget that the bewhiskered, arm-flailing loon in the betting ring is the most recognisable face racing has in Britain despite the fact a platoon of jockeys could fit in his trousers.
And fair play to George he has made the most of it.
The man who once wore a black armband in protest at the death of Heineken Cup rugby on terrestrial television has more recently been extolling the virtues of “Sky PLUUUUS.”
Proof, that, like McCririck, having the hide of a rhino’s nether regions can be a profitable attribute.
It also confirms the unique position of the top telly pundits, those who remain intensely watchable despite possessing personalities that in most other walks of life would make them as welcome at your front door as a couple of feet of flood water.
Like Hook, no one expects Eamon Dunphy to get it right, although he was pretty much on the button with the Macedonia game. Generally, though, anyone hovering over their computer trying to make a few quid with the bookies quickly found out long ago why the casino proprietors of Deauville welcome Dunphy to Normandy every summer like a diminutive reincarnation of Patton.
However in his defence, Dunphy has been known to get lucky every so often, something that behind all the gurning and posing does actually help a little in terms of credibility. So although it is largely irrelevant in the greater scheme of things, it might help Hook out, and get the critics off his back, if just very occasionally he managed to call a game right.
It’s not like he isn’t due.
