Fantasy Rugby Geek Top 5s – My Top 5 Rugby Documentaries

Fantasy Rugby Geekon

We’re coming up to almost a month without top class rugby, and I don’t know about you, but I’m missing it badly. The withdrawal symptoms are kicking in hard, so in the absence of anything to play fantasy rugby on or indeed any live sport to watch, I’m going to stick out a few Rugby-related Top 5’s to tide things over while we stay safe and patiently wait for the return of the real “beautiful game”. If you have any ideas for Top 5’s that you’d like to see, let me know!

First up, it’s my Top 5 favourite Rugby documentaries. With no live Rugby to watch, what better time to delve into the archives and watch some classic material from years gone by. These are the 5 out of many brilliant documentaries that have meant the most to me over the years, but it’s entirely personal preference, so I’m sure some will disagree with some of these. Anyway, in no particular order, let’s gooo…

Living with Lions

    

The original and the best. Certainly one of the first “fly on the wall” sports documentaries that I can recall, and in many ways a truly pioneering sports documentary that paved the way for the proliferation of sports documentaries that we see today. The film is a behind the scenes look at the 1997 British & Irish Lions tour to South Africa. It’s a documentary that touches on many emotions from start to finish, be it the awe-inspiring speeches of Jim Telfer, the fear following Will Greenwood’s horrific injury that almost lead to the loss of his life, the hilarity of John Bentley with the player cam and the ultimate elation following Jeremy Guscott’s famous Series winning drop goal. Chronicling a transitionary time in Rugby at the very dawn of professionalism, Living with Lions provides an intimate insight of a truly top class group of Rugby players reaching their “Everest”. If you watch just one documentary on this list, make it this.

 

 

Pacific Warriors

A 2015 film profiling the trials and tribulations of the Tonga, Samoa and Fiji national teams. This doc provides an eye-opening insight to the challenges faced by these proud rugby nations in the face of huge financial issues and the drain of some of the Pacific Island’s greatest talent to Tier 1 nations. A must-watch for all rugby fans to understand the proud history and heritage of these incredible rugby nations.

 

 

Building Jerusalem

Okay, if you are not an England rugby fan, then watching this may be like pulling teeth. However, it’s a brilliantly produced film with many highlights. These include a fascinating sequence outlining the sport’s transition from amateur to professional; a reminder of the infamous “Tour of Hell” (which non-England fans will enjoy); as well as an inside look as to how Sir Clive Woodward turned England from massive underperformers in 1999 to world champions in 2003 (just ignore Sir Clive’s shocking jumper selection!).

 

 

All or Nothing: All Blacks

This 6-part series on Amazon Prime provided the deepest look ever recorded around the most dominant international Rugby team of all time. Covering the 2017 Lions Tour and 2017 The Rugby Championship, this series provided an unrivalled insight into the world famous All Blacks culture, and being spread over 6 episodes, leaves no stone unturned, making this an enormously satisfying watch for any Rugby fan.

 

Lions Raw: 2013 tour to Australia

Last up, and it’s another Lions tour video. There has been a tour video come out for every tour since the original Living with Lions 1997 tour video, but out of the 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013 and 2017 videos, 2013 stands out. Not only by documenting the first Lions Series win since 1997 but also providing some incredible footage around the infamous dropping of Brian O’Driscoll from the 3rd Test, some great match footage including the brutal warm-up match against the Barbarians in the oppressive heat of Hong Kong and George North taking Israel Folau for a bit of a carry in the 1st Test, and finally an absolutely maginificent pranking of Simon Zebo (clip below…). Make sure you revisit the Lions tour down under! 

 

Honourable mentions…

  • Dan Carter. A Perfect 10.
  • BT Sport Films’ Shoulder to Shoulder
  • The Rugby Boys of Memphis

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Other Top 5’s…

While the sport hiatus goes on, FRG will be creating more Top 5’s to tide things over, any requests, please let me know on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. ICYMI, here are the other Top 5’s so far…

Classic Material

Even with no Rugby going on to play Fantasy Rugby on, here’s a few classic articles that you may have missed previously to keep you warm for the eventual return of the real “beautiful” game…

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Rugby Warfare

Shout out to the good folks at Rugby Warfare who pulled together this insightful and timely infographic based on a survey with various pro, semi-pro and amateur players looking into the methods used to improve their playing performance. Touching on aspects of training and nutrition (as well as some eye-opening insights on PED’s, it’s a must read snapshot into the state of Rugby performance at present). Rugby Warfare themselves produce some awesome looking and high quality Rugby apparel, you can check them out at https://rugbywarfare.com/ and stay tuned for an exclusive discount code for FRG readers coming soon…

Looking for more Fantasy Rugby insight and Resources?

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