As a professional rugby player, Austin Healey's outspoken competitiveness earned him 53 England and British Lions caps, two Heineken Cups and the nickname, the Leicester Lip.

In his fledgling television career, Healey's outspoken competitiveness has earned him a coveted BBC Six Nations analyst role, seats at celebrity poker tournaments on Sky Sports, oh, and a slot on live Saturday night TV performing the cha-cha-cha in an unbuttoned see-through shirt to It's Raining Men by the Weather Girls.

And now, for his latest small-screen venture, he's turning his hand once more to the sport in which he excelled (no, not ballroom dancing) and using all his inside knowledge to reinvigorate the fortunes of ailing grassroots clubs.

How exactly? By making a DIY SOS programme for ITV4 called Austin Healey: The Big Tackle, or, to give its working title, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares meets Changing Rooms in the changing rooms.

His mission on Sunday's opener was to rescue Bristol Barbarians, languishing on minus one point at the bottom of the Tribute Somerset League One and with a clubhouse and pitch in a desperate state of disrepair.

Healey: "The changing rooms look like a nuclear bomb shelter, the clubhouse looks like a scene from Tenko and the posts are almost falling over."

That's the grand tour of Whitchurch, all right.

"This is without doubt one of the ugliest rugby clubs I have ever seen."

And that was before he met the forwards.

With team spirit and results on the field at an all-time low, Healey introduced a tough new training regime, reinstated the previous season's talismanic captain, imparted his tactical know-how, and sought out new blood down the docks (well, where else would you find a man with a penchant for sequined shirts?).

Then he revealed to the squad what this show was really about: "If you're going to play for this club, you have to be proud about it. And being proud about your team isn't just about how you perform on the field. It's about how other people see you."

Yeessss...

"So, when you come down here, you need to be inspired by this place. It needs to be clean and tidy and look good."

Riiiight...

"So, what I want you all to do is to help us really tidy this place and smarten it up. Basically, today I'm going to be Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen."

And with that, The Big Tackle became just another flippin' interior design makeover programme pre- sented by a wannabe dandy.

One hard day's slog later and Healey declared triumphant- ly: "It's amazing what a lick of paint and two black stripes will do."

Get you!

But did his DIY efforts have the desired effect?

Hmmm, the Barbarians lost their next game 32 points to nil.

Maybe an extra coat of paint and a dado rail would have done the trick, Austin.