Profile: He carries his drivetime radio show with amiable gruffness, but Hooky's hyperbolic rugby commentary makes great television, writes Shane Hegarty.
What phrases has George Hook packed with him for today? When he arrives into the RTÉ studio for Ireland's first match of the Six Nations campaign, will he have prepared something from Churchill, or perhaps some reference from the Greek classics? Against France, we are expected to lose, but will Hook have something up his sleeve just in case, a line to match his exultation following Munster's miracle match against Gloucester in the European Cup last year: "You can add Thomond Park to Fatima, Knock and Lourdes. The lame will come here and walk, they'll be selling water here, because this defies logic." Whichever it will be, Hook will today resume his position as the country's most prominent alickadoo. In every rugby club there is at least one bombastic know-it-all, who's got a gripe with the selectors, knows which player is rubbish and which one is being overlooked, why a game plan will fail and why theirs is better. Hook, though, not only has the platform but he has the following.
Alongside his partner in punditry, Brent Pope, he has become the Eamon Dunphy of rugby. His pronouncements are often more entertaining than the match itself. The sight of him on an exposed gantry on muddy, magical days at Thomond Park, as the Munster fans do their best to out-shout him, seems to have become integral to the match-day ritual.
Meanwhile, his radio career is in slow bloom. His daily drive-time show, the appropriately punned The Right Hook, is the most popular programme on Dublin's NewsTalk 106. Its average of 19,000 listeners may not shake the foundations of the industry quite yet, but with Today FM's The Last Word having lost 24 per cent of its audience in its first year without Eamon Dunphy at the helm, Hook may be the one to capitalise. His audience which consists largely of 20- to 44-year-old males, mostly ABC1s, mirrors the audience Dunphy attracted. The current affairs show is stretched both by its two-and-a-half hour length and by its limited resources, but it is heavy on sport (he is joined by Pope for the rugby analysis) and he carries the show with his amiable gruffness.
The 62-year-old was born in Cork and attended the rugby-playing Presentation Brothers college. Hook is a trained accountant, although he never practised. After working for Campbell Catering, in 1977 he set up his own company, Bearcroft, which catered at racecourses and on movie sets. As a film buff, that must have been a particular pleasure. He is married with three children and is a keen golfer.
Rugby gradually became his career. He spent most of his playing days as a back five forward with Dublin club St Mary's, and took his first coaching role in 1968 before going on to coach Galwegians, Old Belvedere and Blackrock as well as British clubs London Irish and Fylde. He coached the American Eagles national team during the 1987 World Cup and from 1993 to 1998 was national technical director of the USA Rugby Union. It was while coaching Connacht between 1990 and 1992, however, that he made his reputation, bringing a degree of success to the weakest of the provincial teams and drafting in the current Irish coach Eddie O'Sullivan as his assistant. Having coached Blackrock during a fraught 1997-98 season, Hook announced his retirement after 30 years by saying that he would take up "a slightly less stressful activity, like capping fires on oil wells". He was recently lured back by De La Salle Palmerstown's women's team, who immediately won three games in a row.
It was during the 1987 World Cup that Hook first appeared as an RTÉ pundit, but became a regular only in the late 1990s. A great reader of history, he does not walk into a studio without a prepared quote or three. It is no surprise that he has always been fond of public speaking. He won several awards in his earlier days, but has recently become a fixture on the after-dinner circuit, delivering motivational speeches on such topics as "Getting the most from your people" as well as chairing conference debates. At around €2,500 a go, he does not come cheap. But his success is again built on preparation. Unlike some other speakers, he does not use the same talk for every occasion, but revels in the challenge.
As a rugby pundit he is entertaining, opinionated and hyperbolic. Pope and presenter Tom McGurk will often have to sit back with mild bemusement, as "Hooky" indulges in a lengthy reference to Caesar's Parthian campaign. As television, it works well. As a way of making friends, it is not so successful. He famously spent each Munster home match of the 2000 season predicting that they would lose, only for the team to get to the European Cup final. After the semi-final, hundreds of fans converged on the commentary box after the semi-final
Hook has not reserved his arrows for players, but the BBC commentators too. The Irish News reported him as referring to them as "those Swedish muppets Statler and Waldorf"; although, as Statler and Waldorf are not Swedish, it is difficult to believe that Hook would have uttered such an inaccurate insult.
Hook is not popular with the Irish players. Out-half David Humphries, of whom Hook has constantly been critical, last year refused to do a post-match interview with RTÉ because of him.
"People think I'm thick-skinned because I'm so outspoken, but in truth that sort of thing bothers me no end," he admitted to the Irish Examiner. "If they are being paid a substantial amount of money to entertain, they have to take criticism. I am part of the same entertainment package and when I get criticised, it goes with the territory. I cannot imagine saying it any other way than the way it is." However, his emotional intensity has ups and downs, when the bombast can give way to introversion. Hook is also not shy of calling journalists and taking them to task if he feels they have been unfair to him. And in 1996, he sued Neil Francis successfully for libel after the journalist and former player had suggested that the American Eagles knew Irish line-out calls during a match between the two for which Hook worked as liaison officer.
He has been no stranger to the courtroom, having been penalised several times for speeding. He was banned from driving for three months after being caught in December 2002 and not appearing in court when summonsed, although he won his appeal against the severity of the ban. On another occasion, he was caught in Tipperary doing 95mph in a 60mph zone, and told the judge that he was rushing to see an Irish match, only to be reminded that he had used that argument on a previous occasion.
The comparisons with Dunphy are obvious: the outspoken punditry, the rows with players, the driving. There was a certain irony, then, in newspaper reports suggesting that Dunphy was about to replace him. However, Hook recently signed a new two-year contract, believed to be worth €100,000 a year. It seemed typical that he announced the development live on air.
There remains a question of how much of Hook's persona is edifice, how much is "Hooky" playing a media character. It will be interesting to see if he can sustain the progress, and build on radio what he has on television, or whether he will ultimately give way to parody.
Either way, this afternoon he will take to the box with the pre-prepared quips, quotes and historical references. He will puff out his barrel chest, stick out the chin and fulfil his role as the ultimate alickadoo, bellowing his opinions across the bars of the land.