'The beatification of Joe Schmidt is now on hold'. And so began George Hook well and truly leathering into the Irish coaching setup following the admittedly listless win over Italy on Sunday.
Hook was speaking to Newstalk Breakfast this morning when he launched into a rant that you have to think he's been saving up for quite some time. We may have won back to back Six Nations and have already qualified for the quarter finals but already Hook is suggesting that Schmidt's time as Ireland boss may be coming to a premature end.
I've always had a doubt about the coaching situation because the test of a coach is when you don't have a great team not when you have a great team. I think there are serious question marks about his selection and strategy.
We don't know, going into the biggest match in the last four years who the number one centre partnership is.
He's playing the game in an outdated format. No other team in the world is playing the game between the two 15 metre lines. We are in deep trouble because he is playing an outdated game plan and maybe it'll work. It'll have to work because he might be joining Brendan Rodgers on his holidays.
Hook went on to state his belief that the IRFU have were 'stampeded' into giving Schmidt a longterm contract before the World Cup, something which, as you may have guessed, he is none too keen on.
Having taken the knife to Sean O'Brien in his Irish Independent column today, Hook also reserved some criticism for one of the keystones of Schmidt's side in the form of Conor Murray.
He certainly has the wrong scrumhalf. He's trying to play a quick game with a scrumhalf who's a bad kicker and he's a very slow passer.
We'll politely decline to make a judgement on Hook's summary, we'll leave that up to you.
