Tony Squires had the toughest gig at the Dally M Awards

TONY Squires was panned for his jokes at the Dally M Awards night, but Matty Johns explains why he was always on a hiding to nothing.

Matty Johns said laughter was hard to come by at the Dally Ms.

THIS is why the only thing some people are scared of more than death is public speaking.

At the Dally M Awards on Wednesday night, Tony Squires found out just how hard it is to work a room full of rugby league players and officials — something Eddie Hayson probably thinks he could help him out with.

The experienced and well-liked sportscaster (seriously, we’re fans) had the gig of hosting the event — a role he has performed successfully before — but things didn’t go as smoothly as he would have hoped.

You’d expect an awards night like this would be a chance for those players not involved in Sunday’s Grand Final to celebrate the season that was with a few ales, or in Johnathan Thurston’s case, a nice selection of reds. A couple of VBs or Merlots would normally loosen people up and make them more receptive to a few dad jokes here and there, but even the crickets were keeping quiet last night.

Shortly into his opening address, Squires welcomed everyone watching on TV and those gathered in the room, before dropping the line: “And of course by gather, we mean consort.”

The cheeky dig was a reference to the number of players who have this season been cautioned about consorting with criminals. Police warned Eels five-eighth Corey Norman, former Panthers hooker James Segeyaro and now-Canberra prop Junior Paulo for allegedly consorting with criminals after a photo emerged on social media of the trio having dinner with a former bikie and an accused fraudster and money launderer.

Then later in the year police turned up to Cronulla training to warn Andrew Fifita of a similar offence.

Those in their black ties and frocks may have got the wisecrack, but they sure didn’t find it funny. There was dead silence.

The same tumbleweed drifted its way back across the room when Squires mentioned Sharks captain Paul Gallen wasn’t in attendance because he’d said sitting in a chair for four or five hours was hardly ideal for his troublesome back.

Cooper Cronk and Jason taumalolo were crowned joint-winners of the Dally M Medal.

Squires replied with: “Four or five hours? Don’t worry, tonight won’t go that long, I plan to be in the sports bar by 10:30pm.”

Perhaps he’d have been better off pinching Sharks coach Shane Flanagan’s sledge when he was asked on the red carpet why his skipper wasn’t alongside him. “He had to buy a new suit and didn’t want to spend the money,” Flanagan said.

Squires later explained the eligibility rules for winning the Dally M Medal, saying a player who had been suspended once during the season would be docked points, while anyone who had been rubbed out on two or more separate occasions in the year was ineligible to walk off with the bling around their neck.

He finished with: “But who knows what the hell happens with the shoulder charge.”

The tumbleweed was thrilled, it was getting more camera time than Brendan Fevola at the 2009 Brownlows.

Squires tried to go for the “it’s funny because it’s true” approach here. You wouldn’t blame players, fans and coaches for having no idea what constitutes a shoulder charge and what it’s penalty is given there’s so much inconsistency in how it’s policed.

But perhaps the fact Squires made the crack so soon after NRL CEO Todd Greenberg gave an impassioned plea for people to focus on the positives of the game rather than the negatives meant people were reluctant to respond to his humour.

Predictably, the sheer awkwardness of those jokes falling flat didn’t go unnoticed by the Twitterverse.

How did Tony Squires get the #DallyM job? Already seen three tumbleweeds roll through after "jokes".

— Matt Findlay (@MRFindlay24) September 28, 2016

Tony Squires: not funny #DallyM

— Steve Zemek (@stevezemek) September 28, 2016

When Tony Squires walks out to host the #DallyM Awards...#NRL #NRLGF pic.twitter.com/1meO2qBCoP

— bet365_aus (@bet365_aus) September 28, 2016

Aimed straight at Tony Squires pic.twitter.com/8hhThORfzu

— GreenMachine Podcast (@GreenMachinePod) September 28, 2016

Tony Squires....again#DallyM pic.twitter.com/C7tb5T7XwR

— Chris Chard (@Vic_Arious) September 28, 2016

Jarrod Croker has already gotten more laughs than Tony Squires, I say we get him to host the rest of the awards WHO'S WITH ME?

— Random Footy Facts (@footyfacts37) September 28, 2016

Squires does an en excellent job hosting Fox Sports’ weekly panel show The Back Page. He’s funny, knowledgeable and engaging, and shows those same traits in his on-air work with Triple M.

But the room just wasn’t on his side on Wednesday night. Sometimes those things happen.

To put Squires’ night into perspective, even funny-man Matty Johns had a tough time winning over the crowd.

The former Newcastle Knight played one season with Cronulla at the end of his career and joked they’d made the Grand Final in 2016 because he’d actually taught the club how to win, but it had taken them 15 years to learn how to do it.

He got doughnuts.

When responding to Greg Alexander’s rhetorical question of “Who doesn’t love Grand Finals?” before introducing an award, Johns’ response of, “Nathan Hindmarsh, Brian Smith” again barely raised a ruffle from those in front of him.

The joke was that Smith coached St George to two grand final losses in the early 1990s, and struck out again in the 2001 decider with the Eels, while Hindmarsh — regularly the butt of jokes on Johns’ show on Fox Sports — was part of that unsuccessful 2001 Parramatta side and also the Eels outfit that lost to Melbourne in the 2009 Grand Final.

Speaking on Triple M’s The Grill Team on Thursday morning, Johns let out a defeated sigh as he said: “God I tell you what, it’s a dead room isn’t it. God. It’s a tough room.”

The biggest roars of the night were actually saved for Norm Provan and Arthur Summons — the pair whose famous embrace is the inspiration for the NRL premiership trophy. Without even trying to, the duo’s banter had the crowd laughing more than if someone told them NSW was a shoo-in to win next year’s Origin series.

Hosting any awards night in front of that many people is a tough gig, and we’re by no means suggesting we could do a better job. We’ll still be tuning in to watch Squires in his next appearance on our screens, and hopefully he gets more support from the room at the 2017 Dally Ms.

Norm Provan (L) and Arthur Summons (R) were the crowd favourites.