Stealing Rugby (2006)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Main Menu Animation Featurette-Tour Of Twickenham, The After Dinner War Featurette-Ross Turnball On 'Talking Sport' Featurette-Things Fall Apart - The Teleconference
Rating
Year Of Production	2006
Running Time	55:02
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	None Given
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (256Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.75:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.75:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    There have certainly been some interesting changes in international rugby during the last ten years or so, beginning with the chasm that opened up in the game around the time of the 1995 World Cup in South Africa. Two media moguls, Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer fought to take control of the game, from very different angles. Murdoch's organisation agreed to a deal with the Rugby Unions of South Africa, Australia & New Zealand for television rights to two new competitions, a southern hemisphere regional tournament, The Super 12 (now 14) and The Tri-Nations (a three way test series between the three nations). Unbeknownst to the Unions and Murdoch, a rival organisation called World Rugby Corporation (WRC) backed by Kerry Packer was signing deals directly with the players to take the game professional, offering them large contracts to play in a new breakaway tournament. This organisation quickly got the support of the players including the three captains of the countries involved, Sean Fitzpatrick, Francois Pienaar & Phil Kearns .

    This one hour documentary from the ABC goes into the details of the behind the scenes manouverings at the time and includes interviews with all the main players in the saga, with the exception of Murdoch and Packer. Interviews are included with Phil Harry (then head of the ARU), Simon Poideven, Dr Louis Luyt (the head of SA Rugby), Jock Hobbs and others from the NZRU, the three captains mentioned above, Ross Turnbull (leader of WRC), Sam Chisholm (who agreed to the deal with the Unions for Murdoch), Ian Ferrier and Peter Fitzsimons, whose book The Rugby War is used as source material for this documentary. Most of the interview material has been filmed recently, however, there is also a lot of archive footage from the time including a video conference between the players and WRC, Ross Turnbull and Louis Luyt arguing on SA television, and other news footage. This is a fascinating documentary which shows and retells what was going on behind the scenes rather than just what appeared in the media.

    A must for Rugby Fans.

Video

    The video quality is good.

    The feature is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.75:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The picture was variable depending on the age of the footage. The recent interviews were very clear and sharp but some of the archive footage was quite grainy and soft, which I suppose is to be expected, especially in the video conference recording. There was no evidence of low level noise.

    The colour was very good although there was some colour bleeding from light colours. There was some chroma noise and cross colourisation in the archive footage.

    The only noticeable video artefact was some very mild aliasing.

    There are subtitles in English which were clear and easy to read.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is very good.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack encoded at 256 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    A few worthwhile extras are included.

Menu

    The menu was still and silent and allowed for turning subtitles on and off.

Tour of Twickenham (4:08)

    Although this is still generally speaking about Rugby its relevance is questionable. It is a short video version of a guided tour of Twickenham, the home of Rugby in England.

The After Dinner War (7:49)

    This is the complete footage of dinner speeches after the last test of the 1995 season, when the war over Rugby was at its height. It includes impassioned speeches about loyalty by Union representatives and is interesting viewing. Some of this footage is used in the main program.

Ross Turnbull on 'Talking Sport' (5:22)

    This is complete footage of Ross Turnbull on South African television explaining his concept. During the interview, Louis Luyt calls in to have an argument. Some of this footage is included in the main program.

Things Fall Apart : The Teleconference (6:05)

    More footage of the famous teleconference where WRC began to unravel. Again some of the footage was used in the main program, but this feature is certainly interesting.

    This release is not available in other regions and was made for the ABC locally .

    A fascinating glimpse behind the facade of international rugby.

    The video quality is good.

    The audio quality is very good.

    A small set of interesting extras are included.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall