Hook lands with a few haymakers

Is there a better sight on expert-panel television than George Hook fulminating? Are there any out there to match The Hookster in stirring up a rugby studio in mourning? No crocodile tears or gentle soliloquies. The Hookster shoots form the hip, is compelling, irritating, intelligent, comedic, belligerent, outrageous.

The Hookster raised the sombre mood of Tom McGuirk's Six Nations studio on RT╔ 1, a few times to a savage tempo and once with a saucy aside. The Hookster is a counterpoint to anyone the network can dress up and wheel in. And, The Hookster is certainly no shrinking violet.

"I thought we were beyond that," he declared after the consensus was that Ireland had just contrived to erase a year of momentum, heightened expectations and Grand Slam hopes.

Pointing to Shane Horgan's ruined international career Hook continued: "The Easterby boys have gone away down the ladder. I think the coach's career is on the line. The coach needs a miracle to get a contract after that."

Those who read sports pages will know Warren Gatland's contract is up for renewal in the months ahead. His fears will not be allayed if part of his post-match routine is to review the game against Scotland with television tapes. Turn down the volume Warren.

"The scoreline is embarrassing. So is the nature of this score," said Tony Ward in the commentary box as Scotland's final powder-puff try all but put the humane killer into the Irish brow. "Truly shocking," added the jinky out half pin-up of the '70s." Jim Sherwin, normally quite a cheer-leader for the Irish team, was similarly reaching to the extremities.

"One of the worst performances Ireland have ever produced on the rugby field," said Sherwin.

"One of the poorest of the Gatland era," added Ward.

"Nothing short of a disaster," chipped in Brent Pope at half-time. "There is no game plan because they can't get their hands on the ball."

The end of RT╔'s coverage of the first of last season's revived Six Nations Championship was little like the beginning. Mick Galwey, Pope and Hook in the studio with Sherwin and Ward in the commentary box had been making altogether more cheerful pre-match sounds than the doleful murmurs from the post-match Murrayfield graveyard.

Ireland, they pointed out, had their Lions and top-calibre players like Denis Hickie and Geordan Murphy in one one of the most talented Irish teams for some years. The Murrayfield black hole was still churning but, hey, this time we've got the fire-power that buried France.

Hook and Galwey, who had played under Ian McGeechan with the Lions in 1993, had pointed to the Scottish coach as being unusually shrewd, with Hook also picking Gregor Townsend as a possible match breaker. The Hookster also rose to his own celebrity.

"Scotland are . . . I nearly said the nymphomaniacs . . . of course, I mean kleptomaniacs of world rugby," he thundered by way of explaining how the Scots get and retain the ball by all manner and means.

In quite a positive way, Ward pointed to how "unreal" the Irish team was, while Galwey emphasised the importance of getting points on the board.

"Back to back wins in the first two matches and we make six changes. That's how unreal it feels," said Ward before Townsend missed his first penalty kick after forty-something seconds.

The statistics showed Gatland has lost more games than he has won with Ireland. Played 35, won 15, lost 17. Make that 18.

Galwey, unfathomably compromised, was the studio straight bat. While Pope and Hook raged, Galwey, an increasingly likely candidate to play in Ireland's next match against Wales, zipped up.

Still very much part of the Ireland set-up, Galwey was not about to complicate Gatland's job of selecting him back into the Irish pack.

"Players will see opportunities over the next few weeks in the European Cup for getting into the Irish side," he said, the genesis of a smile gathering at the corners of his mouth.

The culture of blame was vigorous and alive, the difference being the whole team took the rap. The more specific Hookster aside, consensus was that Team Ireland failed and that Team Ireland emerged from Edinburgh with a moribund reputation. Sherwin, in trying to fill the great voids created by hapless Irish set pieces and an atrophied game plan, uttered, at around the hour mark, "a malaise has just swept through the Irish team".

It seemed a little late for that observation. But the last word was with Galwey. As technology failed wonderfully we were left with McGeechan's face at the post-match interview and Galwey's provincial voice.

"Ian McGeechan is a Kerryman," shot the former Lion. No, but doubtless a few on the panel wished he was.

No Kerrymen in Croke Park either. Network 2's Breaking Ball on Friday evening and repeated on Saturday at 2 p.m. galloped around the GAA issues of the moment landing, as expected, on aspects of yesterday's All Ireland football final.

The magazine format again alighted on half a dozen topics, ranging from what the Carlow Chronicle's GAA man Carlo Di Vito thought would happen in the final (Meath win) to the history surrounding the Sam Maguire cup.

Thoughtfully scripted by the Sunday Times sports writer Denis Walsh, Maguire's biography was an education. A protestant from Dunmanway, it was Maguire who championed Irish causes in Britain at the turn of the century.

"We owe him more than our ignorance," wrote Walsh. Quite.

On less firm ground we were treated to the new drama in the making, which centres around four families involved in the GAA.

Frank Laverty, the voice of Breaking Ball, is a character in the series, which appears to contain a significant amount of football footage.

It is always difficult for actors to take sport to the screen without the holes showing at every turn, for e.g., star of the show filmed kicking the ball with weedy legs. Cut. Sturdy GAA sapling of a limb follows through perfectly for a 70-yard point. Cut. Crowd cheers. Exit hero.

As the GAA are providing backup for the series, there ought to be fewer sins on the screen than say Pele, Bobby Moore and Sylvester Stallone committed in the wartime breakout romp.

Can't quite remember the name of that one, but On Home Ground is on the way.