Joe Schmidt hits back at criticism from ‘so-called pundit’ George Hook

Miaow

If you read that like a cat pleading for milk-that was not our intention. If you read it like you would say it after a pretty stinging comment from your mate or that guy in the office who everybody hates, then you're on the right track. We've gone down the whole catty comment route after Joe Schmidt finally responded to the constant poking of the the RTE TV panel, and their reasons for our loss to Wales last week. George Hook and Tom McGurk concocted the theory that we couldn't breach the Wales defence because Jared Payne's is a New Zealander. Hook then went on to describe the Ireland No 13 as a 'second rate foreign player'. In Thursday's final presser before the squad flew out to Scotland for Saturday's clash at Murrayfield, Schmidt was asked about the criticism of the centre. The Ireland doesn't lose his cool too often in press conferences, but you can feel the acid off every word here as he gave the broadcaster a pretty severe tongue lashing,

'For us, I was incredibly disappointed with one of the so-called pundits slating one of our midfield last weekend when I thought he’d played a good game and I thought he actually opened them up. He made a couple of line breaks and was dead solid defensively. 'That sort of thing, when we’re trying to build confidence in players, filters back to players through family and friends and I don’t think it helps. I don’t think it’s accurate, it’s one of those unfortunate by-products of having people for entertainment value as opposed to people who are a little bit more in-depth in their analysis as the other two pundits were...'

George Hook is unlikely to disagree that he is there very much for entertainment first and analysis second. However it just goes to highlight that the Ireland set up are very aware of what is said about them and the perceptions of players in the media. We await George's response tomorrow. H/T to Irish Examiner