Wood is just the man to talk sense

It would be stretching a point to suggest that Tom Wood, the brick-hard Northampton flanker who won a half-century of caps for England before calling it quits last year, has the political intelligence of Lyndon Johnson, the financial acumen of George Soros and the people skills of Jacinda Ardern.

However, it is tough to think of a better choice of players' mouthpiece on the Premiership's new sporting commission – a body charged with the not insignificant task of rescuing the professional club game from its own self-serving idiocies and re-establishing it as a product worthy of the paying public it professes to serve.

Three Premiership insiders – Nigel Melville, Simon Massie-Taylor and Phil Winstanley – are also on the seven-strong grouping, along with a board member from the Ministry of Justice, an executive from football land and – thank the good lord – a governance specialist in Carys Williams.

Wood is the name catching the eye, though. Entirely devoid of artifice, he has always spoken plainly and to the point – not from the hip, so to speak, but after due thought and reflection.

There was a reason Stuart Lancaster, the England coach between 2012 and 2015, appointed the back-rower as the “conscience” of his team, allowing him to go off-piste with his replies to journalists' questions rather than stick to the script. Basically, he trusted him to say the right things for the right reasons.

As we rake over the ashes of the worst season in Premiership history, those credentials are heaven-sent.