Mark Robinson says that Channel Nine’s The Footy Show is in serious need of a major shake-up despite the reintroduction of Eddie McGuire as host.
The Herald Sun chief football writer says that while the appointment of McGuire, who steps in for the axed Craig Hutchison, is a good one for the show, it needs more changes once it returns to TV screens on August 10 to remain relevant.
“It was a rotting carcass,” Robinson said on SEN’s Crunch Time.
“It has got to be a completely new program, that’s why they are going away.
“It will be really disappointing if they come back and they have the three panellists and then have the three hosts sitting over there.
“They’ve got to come up with new ideas. It got stale.”
Robinson says there were always going to be issues with Hutchison hosting the show since beginning in the role earlier this year, believing his personality is a better fit for Footy Classified, Nine’s Monday night football program which Hutchison will continue to host.
“There was problems from the outset,” he said.
“He is the antagoniser, the stirrer, the aggressor. You sit him on the end of The Footy Show panel and he has to be the big teddy bear, and it wasn’t him.”
The journalist also thinks that Hutchison wasn’t liked enough by the wider public to be successful in the role.
“To sit in that hosts chair, you’ve got to be well-liked I reckon,” said Robinson.
“Craig Hutchison has people out there that don’t like him. Not the people he knows, the public. They don’t like the way he goes about it.
“If you’re going to sit there and watch something for two hours, you’d really want to like the guy who is running it.”
Robinson also called Sam Newman’s bizarre performance on the program on Thursday night staggering, believing it to be a protest that was the final straw in seeing Hutchinson being shown the door.
“Thursday night was a public assassination by Sam Newman on Craig Hutchison, a TV assassination, because he drew it all to a head, and they sacked him the next day,” he said.
“It was a protest show. It was quite amazing that Sam thinks he is so powerful or knows he is so powerful that he can put in a protest two hours live on a Thursday night around the country.”
Despite the Herald Sun writer liking McGuire’s return to The Footy Show, he still stands by his belief that he should consider stepping down as Collingwood president in the near future.
“Most clubs have two or three term presidencies because most clubs believe that such a big business as this is, you need turnover because you need new challenges, new ideas and new personnel,” he said.
“My personal opinion is that Collingwood needs some fresh air.
“If that’s enough with a new coach if that happens and a new chief executive if that happens, that’s fine [but while] McGuire has been a brilliant president, seriously I would like to see this club with new direction.”