Brendan Gallagher: You’ve been in overdrive, BT, but keep the brake on Austin Healey

It’s that time of the year when self-opinionated columnists dispense gongs, and the occasional brickbat, to those who deserve them and this week I’m concentrating wholly on the BT Sport rugby crew who will complete a triumphant debut season at Twickenham on Saturday when Northampton meet Saracens in the Premiership final. Where did that season go?
Informed and analytical when the situation required, humorous and irreverent in between times, BT never forgot that, for the masses, rugby is mostly about having fun with mates and necking a few pints, but they struck the right balance and have added much to the enjoyment of a compelling domestic season.
Mind you, with Sky having set the bar so high in previous seasons, BT just had to hit the ground running. Relegation was simply not an option in their debut Premiership season.
That pressure showed a little in the opening weeks. Craig Doyle, whose cheery countenance I’ve come to greatly enjoy, slightly overdid the hyperbole and the all-singing all-dancing ringmaster act early on – the inevitable hard sell of a new flagship programme keen to impress – but everything soon settled as the rugby took over and the action, stories and debating points started to flow.
Doyle is a versatile performer with an instinctive feel for the game and, judging from one or two cameos, the possessor of a better spin-pass than Austin Healey or Matt Dawson. Respect.
His teaming up every Sunday lunchtime with Lawrence Dallaglio and a guest for a relaxed hour’s digest of the weekend’s action – and a preview of that day’s game – was my must-watch sports programme of the week. Although innovative in many ways – using social media, Skype and clever graphics – there was also more than whiff of the old Rugby Special programme as well.
That’s no bad thing, a nod to the past. Dallaglio has looked to the manor born, enjoying the extra time to chew the cud that satellite TV affords over the BBC where the accent seemed to be on quick sound-bites.
If Doyle and Martin Bayfield, a maturing broadcasting talent and the only man who can make Tom Wood look like a midget when interviewing him, were unashamedly front of house, the bedrock of BT programming was rightly its matchday coverage.
An eminently sound early decision was to employ Sunset and Vine – who revolutionised cricket coverage with Channel 4 and cut their rugby teeth with ESPN – while former BBC staffers Nick Mullins and Alastair Eakin provided instant credibility and journalistic nous.
The role of lead “commentator” has evolved massively and now suits genuine all-rounders such as Mullins and Eakin. One moment they are calling the match, which can be difficult enough, the next they’ll be conducting a quarter-time interview with one of the coaches – some reluctant some garrulous – while seconds later they will be calming down Healey as he goes off on one.
And always, just around the corner, there will be a perplexing decision or TMO call which will need analysing and explaining in words of one syllable to a mystified public. Mullins’ handling of the high octane Saints-Tigers match last week, which took in all of the above, was masterful.
The emergence of Ben Kay has been a boon. His late father John was once Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal of England and Kay Jnr brings that inherited lawyer’s clarity of mind to rugby’s terminally confusing law book and how it can be interpreted and turned to best advantage.
No wonder Leicester used to always be ahead of the game when Kay was calling the shots in their pack. His is not the loudest or most dominating voice in the BT Tower of Babel, but it is invariably the most pertinent.
Which brings us to Healey. I’m basically in favour – but with caveats. Isn’t everybody? His pre-match ‘pit-lane walk’ stuff is fine and occasionally excellent – his dissecting of the different kicking styles out of hand of Danny Cipriani and Nick Evans one night up in Salford was brilliant and prescient – but during a game he assumes the persona of an animated fan who has accidentally strayed from club bar to commentators’ box. He fires from the hip and asks questions later.
Sometimes it works, he can be quick to spot an imminent move or tactical development but also flirts with disaster.
In that Saints-Tigers epic he was shouting blue murder at Calum Clark at one stage, insisting he was about to be sent off for twice kneeing Vereniki Goneva when, on closer examination, no such offence had occurred and it was Goneva who had been out of order, illegally preventing Clark from taking a quick throw.
You walk a tightrope doing live commentary and punditry but sometimes the brain must be engaged before the mouth. Personally I enjoy his enthusiasm and energy but memo to Titus Hill, BT rugby producer: You can only ever have one Austin Healey type pundit on the show. Otherwise it will become a rabble.
Elsewhere, I enjoyed David Flatman’s contributions, Matt Dawson talks a lot of sense and Sarra Elgan, who really knows her stuff, does that thankless touchline interview job as well as anybody. A special mention in dispatches also to Martin Gillingham whose knowledge of the French rugby scene and terrific commentaries on the Top14 matches have helped bring that competition to life.
Ultimately the Top14 clashed too much with the big Premier games and BT has made the tough decision to offload but, hopefully, Gillingham will be snapped up to front Sky’s coverage of the Top14 next season.
As a swansong though, the rugby gods have granted BT Jonny Wilkinson’s final ever appearance in the Top14 final next Saturday, a well-deserved little bonus. But no complacency. Next season they go up against Sky in the new Champions Cup, a clash which has the feel of a Saints-Tigers shoot out. Bring it on.