Tony Jones to take over Sunday Footy Show from Craig Hutchison

THE final major piece of the Footy Show puzzle has been solved with Tony Jones being named the new host of the Sunday edition.

Jones, the longtime sports presenter on Nine News, said the offer came out of the blue. Picture: Channel 9

THE final major piece of the Footy Show puzzle has been solved with Tony Jones being named the new host of the Sunday edition.

Jones will take over as host of the Sunday Footy Show from Craig Hutchison, who was brought in as co-host of the Thursday night Footy Show after Channel 9 lost patience and booted James Brayshaw following publicly played-out contract negotiations. Hutchison had hosted the Sunday Footy Show and Footy Classified for Nine.

Nine decided it was not wise to have the same person host their three main football vehicles, and opted to move Hutchison on from the Sunday show to let him concentrate on Thursday’s prime-time product.

Jones, the longtime sports presenter on Nine News, said the offer came out of the blue.

“I just never put myself into the calculations. I’d had my time and you sort of move on to other things. So when they called me up on Tuesday and offered me a show, talk about out of the blue, that really was one from left field. I thought my time might have passed,’’ he said.

Jones, who will continue his sports presenting duties with Nine News, has a history with the Sunday Footy Show.

“I never had any great designs to do the Thursday night show, but Sundays had always been dear to me because I produced the show and hosted it and did that for a number of years,’’ he said.

“When Garry (Lyon) hosted it, I produced it and when Garry left the Sunday Footy Show I took over presenting it. I have always had a real affection for it.’’

Jones said he wanted the show to remain entertaining.

“It does not matter who has been in the chair, or who has been on the panel, it has had a good feel for Sunday morning,’’ he said.

“Some footy shows, you look at them, and you have to ask are they talking about football or is this Meet the Press? It is a game of footy, let’s lighten up a little bit.’’

A question still remains as to who will replace Luke Ball on the Sunday Footy Show panel alongside Nathan Brown, Billy Brownless, Matthew Lloyd and Damian Barrett.