Rugby coverage on terrestrial TV had been due a refresh, and the happy news is that ITV is doing some really good work on the Nations Championship.

It felt that rugby on ITV for too many years had been a formula of Mark Pougatch with three former greats in a studio, doggedly explaining the minutiae of the refereeing decisions and engaging in mild Englishman, Irishman and a Scotsman-type banter. There is absolutely no argument about the credentials of Sir Clive Woodward, Jonny Wilkinson, Brian O’Driscoll, John Barclay and so on, but a) there was no obvious point of differentiation from the BBC coverage and b) it isn’t very visually interesting to just have three pundits in a studio.

So it was encouraging that Sunday’s coverage of the England versus Australia match at Twickenham had an excellent blend of familiarity and energy, beginning with Pougatch outside the ground talking to Ugo Monye, who was given a cheeky kick by Ellis Genge as the prop walked past.

Topsy Ojo has a nice way about him and is close enough in age to the active players that they seem to find him clubbable, although I’m sure that Gabriel Clarke or Sonja McLaughlan would have done more with the opportunity to put some questions to the England players about the reported rift with coach Steve Borthwick. Still, we are where we are and the vogue for having former players doing the flash interviews means that is what you get: matey access instead of tough questions. Fortunately, there seems to be no move as yet to insist on the main commentators having had elite level playing experience and the indefatigable Nick Mullins is still doing the business week in, week out.

Borthwick himself is in paint-drying territory as a TV interviewee, but you cannot blame ITV for that. The in-play adverts – Microsoft in a split-screen while the sides were setting up for a first-half scrum – however, are winning zero admirers.

The designated Australian for the afternoon was George Gregan: a thoughtful fellow, most unusual for an Australian rugby player. He took the predictable rubdown from Pougatch about sandpaper use in good heart. David Flatman introduced an element of fun and there was an enjoyable bit of business with him and co-commentator Ben Kay, where they demonstrated how and why certain types of tackle, such as the knee drop, have been added to the naughty list.

Obviously, the ITV coverage is only one part of a broader question about how to get more people interested in rugby. There are plenty of traps here (nothing worse than painful “Hello, fellow kids, rugby’s well wicked, innit?”), but I would say that ITV opened up two different avenues pretty well. One was a trail for a YouTube chat show called The Sidestep presented by Marcus Smith and Louis Rees-Zammit that hopes to build an audience online around two marketable and likeable young guys.

Second, at 7.15pm on ITV4, there was a post-match analysis and discussion show called The Debrief. This is hosted by Claire Thomas, usually with Dan Biggar and Ronan O’Gara, although the latter was away this week on club coaching duty. His replacement? None other than Eddie Jones, and who better to discuss the big story of the week about an England coach who rubs people up the wrong way?

Mullins had said earlier in the afternoon that ITV will be having plenty of Eddie’s company over the coming months. Not to everybody’s taste but there is definitely a vacancy for someone who could be outspoken and harsh.

Or normally he is. For whatever reason, perhaps the easy-going pairing of Thomas and Biggar, he was all smiles on Sunday evening, and full of generous words about England and Australia.

It might be that he has some nerves about answering questions in the studio format; it comes across like he thinks he is in a press conference and people are trying to trip him up. Really up to him what he chooses to make of his media role, but a bit of sourness could be just what the ITV stew needs, and the man has, after all, shown himself time and again to be a lemon in human form.