TV VIEW:PRAISE THE Lord for George Hamilton, the RTÉ commentator who makes it possible to experience television sport in both sound and vision, just as said Lord intended us to.
This epiphany occurred during Saturday night’s football which turned out to be a notably insipid viewing experience for the simple reason that a bunch of Bulgars ran several dizzying rings around a home team whose only good fortune was to have scored a goal after 35 seconds.
As he has been unobtrusively doing for decades now, George guided us smoothly through the tedium, throwing in relevant facts and figures, lightly allowing some brief injections of humour, but all the while leaving no one in doubt about what he thought of the fare being served up to us.
“It’s tempting to say this is Italian style – defending a lead – but Ireland are not letting them play, Bulgaria have taken over,” George declared after 35 minutes. At which time it dawned: the mute button was unemployed.
This is becoming rare. The simple truth that most of us like to listen to as well as watch our sport is a reality that seems to have escaped many of Hamilton’s colleagues. The pictures might be all important lads, but in television terms, they are basic: it’s commentary that provides the all-important tone.
Like George, the real top commentators resemble good referees. You should hardly know they are there. Start noticing them and it’s usually because they jarringly believe their job is to give of themselves.
Rugby’s day of days in Cardiff recently was just such an example. Instead of simply describing an unambiguously entertaining match, Ryle Nugent treated us to 80 minutes of whooping, bellowing, screeching, tub-thumping fandom that transformed even the illusion of RTÉ objectivity into a fluffing side-show. The old trick of pressing mute and turning on the radio – a la Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh – didn’t work either because Michael Corcoran can make Ryle sound like James Earl Jones. Whinnying his suddsing passion like a yearling colt let loose on a paddock of fillies, Corcoran often sounds as if he’s about to strip down to his IRFU-issue green boxers and finally give in to the impulse to suckle uncomplicatedly at the teat of Paul O’Connell. Little wonder then that the opposition are sometimes dismissed as ‘duddur fellahs’. Bill McLaren, eat your heart out.
Hamilton’s relative understatement in contrast came as a blessed relief, especially since trying to paint a green sheen on what was going on would have been close-the-door embarrassing. George is hardly from the Paxman school of sneer but he and Jim Beglin didn’t duck from calling it as they saw it.
“Ireland are struggling to put together any kind of move,” George opined while Beglin chimed in: “We know we are lacking midfield creativity. Surely something can be done with Stephen Ireland and Andy Reid.”
What Eamon Dunphy would like to do with Reid seems to involve storming the barricades and placing his butty little wronged backside atop democracy’s noble brow. Eamon has spotted a “wrong” to get warm about, always a worry for an Irish football manager, and especially when other words like “regime” start cropping up.
“It’s a worry Bill. When a wrong happens to an individual by a regime, it has to be said – in public – it is wrong!” Eamon lectured, like an old Trot happily returning to the indignant fold.
Tearing into Trap goodo, he wouldn’t wear the idea that maybe, just maybe, the Irish players are playing rubbish because they are not good enough to do any better.
“It’s an impoverishment of ambition,” Eamon pronounced. “The mindset and influence of the coach is not good enough.”
“I disagree,” Ronnie Whelan interjected, dismissing any flowery flourishes and leaving no one in doubt he at least believes the current players are indeed not good enough. Eamon appeared put-out and looked to Gilesy for solace. But all he got was a line carved determinedly down the middle.
“It’s a combination of the manager’s philosophy in relation to the players he picks,” the great man said. Such moderate diplomacy would take the wind out of any revolutionary sail. But there are only a couple of days to Bari: More than enough time to get all Garibaldisque about Irish football’s very own Mussolini.
There was much less dissent earlier as TG4 broadcast the world’s richest race, the Dubai World Cup, live from Nad Al Sheba. In fact they broadcast all six races on the $21 million card, guaranteeing themselves four and a half hours of live Saturday afternoon sport.
Considering the meeting is regarded as a large advertisement for Dubai by the ruling Maktoum family, it’s safe to assume that TG4 hardly had to break any bank to get the feed.
Not unexpectedly, there wasn’t any deviation from the line that everything in Dubai is wonderful and that Sheikh Mohammed is the world’s greatest man. But parking such propaganda to the side, there was also no getting away from the fact that the channel secured itself high-quality live sport for an entire afternoon.
Over on RTÉ there was choice of a Celebrity Bainisteoir repeat and a couple of hours of Oliver Reed smooching an elephant in the movie Hannibal Brooks. Even those whose first impulse on seeing a horse is to switch channel can’t deny TG4’s initiative on securing some sport for a Saturday afternoon, and as Bill O’Herlihy says, it was loive!
