Ugo Monye is England's wing on a prayer. While his team-mates get pumped up on gangsta rap, he hides himself away whispering words from the gospel.
'Before every game I try and find a corner,' he says.
'You've normally got hardcore rap in the room, with 50 Cent swearing his face off, and there's me trying to find a quiet corner to say a prayer.
Model player: Ugo Monye is a fashion icon but his main job is trying to cement a place in England's World Cup squad;
'But I love all that music as well so it's a bit of a contradiction!'
The confession is telling.
Monye is anything but your holier-than-thou preacher.
He is articulate, intelligent and acutely aware that accusations of hypocrisy follow any Christian who does not always behave like a saint.
'I'm not going to sit down and force the lads to say grace but if people want to ask questions about my faith then I'll happily talk about it. People resort back to the stereotype and expect you to be the perfect person. I'm definitely not that. I make mistakes all the time - just general life decisions on nights out or whatever - but I have a moral code I try to live my life by.'
Although tipped for a plane ticket to New Zealand, Monye has some way to go to usurp England's starting holy trinity in the back three for this World Cup.
Finding strength in God: Monye is put through his paces at Pennyhill Park, Bagshot;
While he has been struggling with injury, Ben Foden, Chris Ashton and Mark Cueto have been key to England's revival and this month's warm-ups, starting with Wales at HQ on Saturday, will be crucial for the 28-year-old to stake his claim.
Yet there is far more to Monye than rugby and religion.
He is a 6ft 2in model - the chiselled Maximuscle ambassador who has done a nude shoot for Cosmopolitan; a fashion icon - who drives to Twickenham in a white Range Rover and changes into an Evel Knievel T-shirt and diamond-encrusted ear-rings; and a charming conversationalist - he won't admit it but the ladies love him.
Born in Islington, he was a football-obsessed Arsenal fan who only took up rugby aged 13 to fit in.
Ugochukwu Chiedozie Monye is hardly an inconspicuous name at a very English school and it was his sporting ability that gained him instant popularity.
It also helped that a certain prefect at Lord Wandsworth College was one Jonny Wilkinson.
'He was two or three years above me but we were in the same boarding house. It's funny he used to take me for homework and stuff like that.
Inbetweener: Jonny Wilkinson was a school mate;
'We messed around playing silly games like British bulldog after prep. I used to go watch him play for the 1st XV. His professionalism didn't start when he turned professional but way back when we were at school.'
Monye was not quite so quick to turn professional, in mind at least, and confesses to being 'grabbed by the bright lights' of London earlier in his career.
'I was just a young kid thrown into a professional environment without all the support. From an early age people talked about me playing for England and I kind of believed it to be honest.
'I'm glad I didn't play because I'm not sure I'd have handled it at 19. Instead I had trials and tribulations, relegation with Harlequins what have you. It felt so much sweeter when I managed to achieve it.'
Passing the test: Monye at an England training session;
His already glittering list of achievements - from prolific England Sevens scorer to poster boy for the British Lions - would sparkle even brighter were it not for a long list of injuries that has kept him to an unlucky 13 caps.
He was on crutches during the last Six Nations thanks to a broken big toe, endured a sickening clash of heads with Scotland flanker Kelly Brown the year before and, in 2008, was left temporarily paralysed when a bulging disc put pressure on his sciatic nerve.
'I was 24 and I couldn't walk. I had to be carried around. It was crazy not being able to do anything for yourself - feed yourself or go to the toilet unassisted. I couldn't care less about rugby it was about my welfare. I wanted to be normal again.'
Monye has a tattoo down his torso that reads 'Only God can judge me'.
Well, for the next few weeks at least, God and England manager Martin Johnson.
Ugo Monye was speaking ahead of England's Summer Investec International against Wales on Saturday, which is live on Sky 3D.
Visit www.sky.com/3D for more information.
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