A behind-the-scenes documentary on the European Six Nations rugby championship. Each season showcases one season of the tournament, focusing on particular players in each team, showing the build-ups to certain games, what's at stake, highlights from the games themselves and the aftermath.
An interesting look into the world of international rugby, in particular Six Nations rugby. The behind-the-scenes footage and interviews are illuminating and helpful. Some great close-to-the-action shots from games too, footage you won't see in your average sports coverage.
However, it feels a bit superficial. There's a lot of team meetings and huddles but not much in the way of strategy and tactics. I found the player profiles dull - I really don't care about selected players' personal lives, I want to follow the rugby.
The experts who are wheeled in to provide some context and colour to proceedings are often just cheerleaders, telling us how great a player is with glib, trite comments.
The fact that each episode is devoted to a handful of players, generally one from each team with someone from the opposing team of that week also covered to balance things out, is also an issue. The experts and players often comment that rugby is the ultimate team sport - and it is - but yet the main focus of the series is individual players! Would much more have preferred a team-based view of proceedings.
Still, it's quite entertaining and, unless you already know the results of the games, quite tension-filled, something the producers manage quite well.
