Pundits and pushers: Lawrence Dallaglio and the ITV team

There is an upbeat, plucky approach to ITV’s coverage of the Rugby World Cup. Gone are the gloomy, autumnal Twickenham internationals on BBC accompanied by bickering match commentators and a pundit team consisting of a hip headmaster in John Inverdale, a red-eyed and vaguely threatening Jeremy Guscott, the exasperating Welsh cadence of Jonathan Davies and an absurd Keith Wood. In bright contrast, ITV have a neon-highlighted studio which seems to have incorporated a few of Sky’s touch-screen gizmos, without retaining the same overtone of male-chauvinism.

ITV has assembled a smooth blend of analysts to ease disoriented viewers through some early morning games kicking off at blank, single-figured hours. There is the offensive charm of Danny Care, palatable and groomed; the kind suitable for presenting Newsround or Blue Peter. There is Sean Fitzpatrick who, despite being a scary player in his time, now has a tranquil homeliness about him; he wears a suit well, but gives the impression he would be more comfortable in a pair of chinos with open-toe sandals, tending to a family BBQ.

Then there is the persuasiveness of Francois Pienaar, who, with hooked nose, looks slightly wizened like a shifty Lion King character that deliberately leads young cubs astray. The early starts seem to be affecting him, as he appears jaded and weary like a financially-troubled Ian Beale after a cafe health and safety scare. Perhaps fatigue was responsible for his peculiar announcement that the England players in the changing room would have ‘their hearts fluttering with steroids’. A pregnant pause followed, particularly from Lawrence Dallaglio, with his tangled past of substance-peddling tabloid allegations.  Either Francois meant: ‘adrenaline’, or was providing  a sinister insight into his 1995 meetings with Nelson Mandela, who may have instilled the ‘win at all costs’ mentality to the Springbok captain a little too forcefully.

What comes across most with Dallaglio is the sheer reasonableness of the man, as he lounges with angled head, poised on a cathedral of fat fingers. He fields gentle Steve Rider questions by narrowing his eyes as if sizing up an opposition no.8. His jaw line is still jaw-dropping and spectacular; the most impressive in world sport. His neck and chin are over-sized, square and powerful, making him look like David Coulthard with a goitre of the thyroid glands. In his playing days, there was a fumbling, wispy honesty about his work at the coalface. With his jutting, stubbly chin he would resemble Desperate Dan scrabbling around for a hidden cow pie with one hand and capable of lifting a full-size bovine with the other.

In the warm light of today, there can be no more far-fetched story than the one Dallaglio himself told to undercover News of the World reporters. He fabricated a distant past of drug dealing in a desperate bid to impress, probably talking street and term-dropping things like: ‘Whiz’, ‘Banano’, ‘Wraps’ and ‘Belushi’. But nobody can picture a youthful Lawrence peddling cocaine around Shepherd’s Bush from the boot of a suped-up hatchback, no matter how long ago; his accent would simply not allow it. ITV can relax; not even the unrealistic spectre of drugs, performance-enhancing or otherwise, could possibly frighten the family audience.