The Authors of this Rugby Manual are respected professional associates. I have previously discussed the introduction of the Mechanics of Physics into Rugby through Bio-Science Technology with them. They have gone one-step further and compiled this informative Techno-Bio-Science 15-man Rugby Manual and envisage the contents of these manuals IE Upgraded Technical Proficiencies, Tackling Techniques, Tactics and Strategies will become pre-requisites to achieve a professional status, be it as a player or coach at a senior level.
This Rugby Manual is very well written, defined and fully illustrated. Implementing the factual dynamics of integrating Techno-Bio-Science promoting a new mode of Smart Rugby. A Pre-Requisite for winning ways.
Continuing on the same theme Bert, Margo & Team have designed an Elite Fitness Program in a Computerised Excel Somatograph Format, (can be purchased separately), depicting and analyzing Personal Fitness Assessment, in my opinion a very useful tool to have in your possession.
www.futuristicrugby.com
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Originally published in 1928, this is a wonderfully comprehensive look at 'rugger'. It includes personal reminiscences of some of the top players from the 1900s and goes on to offer a complete training and tactics guide. Illustrated throughout with photographs and diagrams, the book still has much practical advice to offer the modern rugby enthusiast, as well as the historical interest. Many of these earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

No other rugby book to date has been so well designed, so easy to use, and so committed to weight training. This book will have the player increasing strength, quickness, agility, and endurance.

Originally published in 1938, this is book is a comprehensive manual of rugby technique and tactics. Well illustrated throughout with photographs and diagrams, this still contains much of practical use to the modern reader. Contents Include: Individual Practice; Dribbling; Tackling; Kicking; Passing; Body-Swing and Running with the Ball; Combined Practice; The Forwards; The Tight Scrum; The Loose Scrum; The Line Out; Forwards in Defence; Forwards in Attack; The Backs; The Scrum-Half; The Stand-off Half; The Three-quarters, The Centres; The Three-quarters, The Wings; The Full-back; Combined Attack; Combined Defence; Miscellaneous; Clothing, Training, etc; Refereeing and Touch-judging; Learning From Example.

As France's oldest team sport, rugby football has throughout its 125-year history reflected major changes in French society. This book analyzes for the first time the complex variety of motives that have led the French to adopt and remake this rather unlikely British sport in their own image. A major site for the construction of masculine, class-based regional and national identities, France's tradition of 'Champagne rugby' continues to be as subject to dramatic upheavals as the society that produced it. The game's precocious professionalism and endemic violence have not infrequently caused the French to be cast as international pariahs. Such isolation, exacerbated by internal politics, has led the French not only to encourage the extension of the sport beyond its British imperial base (into Italy and Romania, for instance), but also to engage in some uncomfortable tactical alliances, most obviously with apartheid South Africa.
Taking his analysis both on and off the field, the author tackles these issues and much more: the relationship of sport and the state (including particularly the Vichy period and the period under de Gaulle); professionalization; the persistence of colonial and postcolonial structures (including the role of ethnic minorities); and gender issues - especially masculine identities. At the same time he links the evolution of the sport to the broader context of French socio-economic, political and cultural history.
This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the cultural analysis of sport or French popular culture.

Throughout the history of rugby union, a select few players have stood out above the rest. Bringing together 50 of the finest, this book reveals the fearless scrum-halves, tricky wingers, explosive centres and powerful props that have lit up the game, celebrating their achievements and controversially ranking them in order of greatness. Is the might of Jonah Lomu preferred to the vision of David Campese? Who was more influential, Jonny or Johnno? Which hemisphere has produced the most superstars? And most importantly, who will be named the greatest player of all time? Passionately argued, provocative, and sure to trigger lively debate, this book is a must-read for rugby fans everywhere. Published in time for the Six Nations 2016 and fully updated following the 2015 Rugby World Cup, hosted in England.

Fully updated to contain Sir Ian McGeechan's reflections on the 2017 Lions tour to New Zealand. 2017 saw the latest contest between the British Lions and New Zealand - the ultimate rugby clash between the northern and southern hemisphere. Ian McGeechan is the 'Ultimate Lion', and no one could have done more than McGeechan to promote the magic of the Lions. McGeechan played for the Lions in their unbeaten 1974 tour of South Africa, and again in the 1977 tour of New Zealand. Subsequently he has been the head coach on four Lions tours. In this unique and fascinating book which celebrates the immensity of rugby at the top level, Ian McGeechan uses his own coaching notes to provide his special insight and background into what it means to be a Lion. By looking at various themes such as selection, how to create the right environment and how to build the players into what he describes as 'Test-match animals' the reader learns how some of the most successful Lions tours in history were built. Writing always with passion for his various themes it is easy to see how he inspired his players to extraordinary physical endeavour. Rich in anecdote as well as facts, McGeechan brings to life many of the rugby legends with whom he played or coached - including Gareth Edwards, Gavin Hastings, Martin Johnson and Paul O'Connell amongst others. Hugely readable The Lions: When the Going Gets Tough splendidly conveys the massive excitement that is generated whenever there is a Lions tour.

The All Blacks have had a brilliant run of brothers in the last decade, with the Barretts, Whitelocks, Saveas and Franks, but there have also been many more standouts throughout New Zealand rugby history like the Meads, Whettons, Gears, Bachops and Brownlies. Jamie Wall writes insightfully, revealing fascinating stories and providing analysis of some of the massive changes that have occurred in New Zealand rugby over the years, while sharing great yarns about the high-profile tests that live on in every rugby fan's memory.

'An impassioned tour around France which is best enjoyed with a bottle of red ... or two.' The Sunday Times 'I've known Peter for some years and I'm sure you will enjoy his personal journey to the heart of rugby in this superb country.' Dan Carter, Former All Black and Rugby World Cup winner 'Bills' wondrous travelogue features so many great tales from the mouths of legends.' Irish Independent 'I really enjoyed this book ... A great memoir of France and its people through the eyes of rugby.' Michael Lynagh, TV analyst and Australian Rugby World Cup winner 'Wonderful! This is a great read. I simply loved it and I am sure that many others will also.' Bob Dwyer, Australian World Cup winning coach 1991 From French rugby's origins in Le Havre, (as an English export in the late nineteenth century) to the Catalan coast, acclaimed rugby writer Peter Bills travels the length and breadth of this vast country visiting not only the big cities but those regional heartlands of the game such as Toulouse, Bordeaux and Clermont as well as clubs in the Basque country, to reveal a country whose deep love of rugby has created a culture and playing style like no other. Featuring exclusive interviews with many of the greatest international players to have played club rugby in France, from Ronan O'Gara to Dan Carter, as well as French legends of the sport, from Serge Blanco and Jean-Pierre Rives to Antoine Dupont, Le Coq: A Journey to the Heart of French rugby brings to life the passion, colour, excitement, characters, anecdotes, locations and great moments of French rugby's near 150 years of existence, just as it prepares to host the 2023 Rugby World Cup. Former French Grand Slam captain Jacques Fouroux talked of 'Rugby; the game, the life': this book will show you exactly what he meant.

Warren Gatland's In the Line of Fire is the ultimate chronicle of this summer's remarkable Lions tour to New Zealand - home of the fearsome All Blacks, the double world champions - which culminated in an historic and nerve-shredding series draw. The book is the Head Coach's wonderfully candid and vibrant record of the withering ferocity, the turbulent peaks and troughs, the triumphs and despairs, of one of sport's toughest challenges. It gives rugby fans an unparalleled front-row seat with the squad and coaching team during every facet of preparing for and executing a successful tour on the opposite side of the planet, recounting intriguing details on everything from pre-tour planning and strategy, to on-tour experiences, analysis and decision-making. It all adds up to a thrillingly definitive exposition and post-mortem of a mind-blowing six weeks in the cauldron which forged the mighty All Blacks.

Every Sunday for almost a century John Cann's family ran the famous snake show in a pit at La Perouse in Sydney - an area once alive with tiger, brown and black snakes. After growing up with over 300 'pet' snakes in their backyard, John and his brother George took over the snake show from their parents in 1965. By the time John retired in 2010, he'd survived five venomous snake bites. Many of those familiar with John and his shows wouldn't know that he was also an Olympic athlete, a top state rugby league player who played alongside some of the legends of the game, a state champion boxer, an adventurer and a world authority on turtles. The Last Snake Man chronicles John's extraordinary life and times. From wrangling snakes to chasing turtles, from remote country towns to the impenetrable jungles of New Guinea, this is the story of an amazing Australian and his never-ending search for fascinating animals and adventure.

'He's one of the best players I've ever played with. As a forward, I'd say he's the best.' Johnny Sexton Sean O'Brien does not come from a traditional rugby background. He grew up on a farm in Tullow, far from the rugby hotbeds of Limerick and Cork or the fee-paying schools of Dublin. But as he made his way up through the ranks, it soon became clear that he was a very special player and a very special personality. Now, Sean O'Brien tells the remarkable and unlikely story of his rise to the highest levels of world rugby, and of a decade of success with Leinster, Ireland and the British and Irish Lions.

What is the state of rugby? Is the game on the brink of expansion? Or is it on the brink of implosion? No game has undergone so traumatic a transformation since the turn of the century. The last of the major sports to embrace professionalism, rugby was propelled on a trajectory that has twisted its cumbersome frame to the limit in a drama compelling and appalling to behold. After a hundred years defying the future, rugby now shudders with the turmoil of its sudden leap into the modern world, attaining heights hitherto undreamed of, even as the strains - financial, political, social and medical - threaten to tear it apart. With a global focus (and a particular lens on Australasian and South African rugby), Unholy Union is a fascinating and in-depth analysis of the sport, examining the journey so far and speculating on where it will go next. It is irreverent and provocative, asking uncomfortable questions of rugby, but imbued throughout with affection for a game that integrates all human life, as beautiful as it is ugly, as in love with itself as it is terrified. Sports enter periods that make or break them. Rugby is in one now . . .

'We spent all our time surrounded by police cordons and barbed wire, never mind having our bus hijacked.' - Tommy Bedford, Springboks No. 8 2019 and 2020 mark the fiftieth anniversary of the controversial 1969/70 Springbok rugby tour of the British Isles - a landmark event on both a sporting and political level. Taking place during the time of South Africa's apartheid dispensation, the tour was characterised throughout by violent demonstrations against the 'ambassadors of apartheid'. Scenes of chanting demonstrators at the players' hotels and airports were not uncommon, nor was the sight of protesters being dragged off the field of play by police. Smoke bombs and flour bombs also became a match-day fixture. These were wild and unnerving times for the players on tour, whose movements were badly inhibited and who had to play hide-and-seek to avoid possible violence between games of rugby. During a demanding tour that lasted more than three months and took them to and fro between England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, they endeavoured to sustain a proud tradition of highly successful Springbok tours through the Isles. Through personal interviews with the players, including team captain Dawie de Villiers, vice-captain Tommy Bedford and other senior members of the squad, as well as key figures such as anti-apartheid campaigner Peter Hain, Rugby Behind Barbed Wire takes readers into the inner circle of a besieged group of sportsmen who just wanted to play rugby despite concerted efforts to deny them. The author also looks at the political context of events, and why so many felt that disrupting the tour was a matter of moral and political necessity.

Lewis 'Mad Dog' Moody has been a familiar face in English rugby for fifteen successful and, at times, painful years. The former Leicester and now Bath flanker has seen and done it all in a sport that has changed beyond recognition from his first forays into the sport to the huge spectacle that rugby, and especially test match rugby, has become. Known for his near-suicidal fashion of playing the game, Moody has achieved as much as anyone in the history of the sport, from league, cup and European honours with an iconic Leicester Tigers team alongside the likes of Martin Johnson and Neil Back, to a 2003 World Cup winners medal and an MBE when still a young man. A great deal of heartbreak would follow - pain, illness, self-doubt and dark days in the four years before the next World Cup campaign that saw Moody and England fall in the 2007 final but he re-emerged to finally captain his country to a third World Cup campaign in 2011. Mad Dog - An Englishman is the story, warts and all, of one of the most-loved and respected British sporting figures; a story that allows the reader into the inner sanctum of a top rugby star's life, from the early days of student and rugby dressing room mayhem, to the latter years of dedication to the cause, and utter professionalism against all odds. You may think some of Lewis Moody's adventures are well-known. You would be wrong. In this searingly honest autobiography the original 'Mad Dog' lays himself bare and, along the way, takes you on an incredible journey that will make you laugh, cry and understand what it takes to construct a career as successful as Lewis Moody's.

In RUGBY TALES, Lawrence Dallaglio recalls with affection and razor-sharp humour, the behind-the-scenes stories that have previously only been shared within the world of international rugby, together with some classics from his rugby-playing colleagues and mates. There's the one about the 2003 World Cup winner who curtseyed to the queen and another featuring the rugby legend who was affronted by the suggestion that he had been out on the town until 3 a.m. days before a crucial match. 'Don't you look at me,' he cried indignantly, 'I got in at six.' Featuring big games, bigger personalities, quick-fire banter and the odd pint or two, these are the best of the best from the legends of the dressing room, pitch and pub.

During the six years of a brutal global war - from the battlefields of Europe, to the deserts of North Africa, the jungles of the Asia and even in Prisoner of War camps - rugby union continued to be played wherever and whenever possible by the servicemen of Britain and her Allies from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, Dedicated to 'all those in rugby who did - and who didn't - make it through those troubled times', War Games is a comprehensive and highly illustrated commemoration, packed with stories and statistics that for the first time chronicles the history of rugby - the men and the matches, from `scratch' to international - during the Second World War. Starting with the short-lived 'infant' season of 1939-40 and ending with the `Victory' series of internationals in 1945-6, and including the hugely successful New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) 'Kiwi' tour of 1946, War Games details all the major rugby contests and the hundreds of players including: Bleddyn Williams, Prince Alex Obolensky, Bill McLaren, Wilf Wooller, Blair Mayne, Sir Tasker Watkins, Ralph Sampson, Gus Risman, Willie Davies, Les Manfield, Charlie Saxton, Fred Allen and Jim Sherratt. Essential and entertaining reading for followers of rugby and military historians alike, respected rugby authors Howard Evans and Phil Atkinson tell the tale - meticulously and with great affection for the game they love - of those men who played for fun but who, on too many occasions, lost more than a rugby game.

Stories from on and off the pitch by two legendary Welsh Rugby World Cup referees. -- Welsh Books Council

After the terrible losses of The Great War, twenty years later the Second World War resulted in the death of some of the finest sporting icons. This book honours the ninety international rugby players who lost their lives. Fifteen were Scottish, fourteen English, eleven Welsh and eight Irish. Australia and New Zealand suffered with ten and two internationals killed respectively and France eight. Germany topped the list with nineteen. In the same way that the Authors best-selling Into Touch remembered the 130 Internationals lost in the First World War, Final Scrum gives an individual biography of each of the ninety with their international and club playing record as well as their backgrounds, details of their military careers and circumstances of their death. We learn where they are buried or commemorated together with at least one photograph of each player. Rugby enthusiasts will find this book a fascinating and moving record of the sacrifice of the finest young men of their generation who fought in the second worldwide conflict of the 20th Century.

The revelatory autobiography of a rugby colossus: Paul O'Connell. WINNER OF THE CROSS SPORTS BOOK AWARDS RUGBY BOOK OF THE YEAR There has never been a rugby player quite like Paul O'Connell. He is synonymous with passion, heart and determination; but he is also the thinking man's rugby player, a legendary student of the game. As the heartbeat of Munster, British and Irish Lions captain in 2009, and captain of the first Ireland team to defend a Six Nations championship, O'Connell has emerged as perhaps the most beloved of the golden generation of Irish rugby players. In an autobiography as intense as its author, he tells the story of his remarkable career. 'The years of O'Connell and O'Driscoll were as close to a golden age as ever Ireland will get and O'Connell's book tells you how it all happened ... It should be mandatory for every Irish squad member to read O'Connell's book to better understand what it takes to make a team' David Walsh, Sunday Times 'O'Connell has emptied the tank here. ... What has come out ... is a psychological profile that is almost shocking at times in what it reveals about the bloody single-mindedness of the competitive gene' Hilary A. White, Irish Independent 'The intense physicality of his rugby upbringing is an abiding theme ... along with humour, the craic and an extensive knowledge of how teams work' Paul Hayward, Daily Telegraph 'I found The Battle entrancing' Stephen Jones, Sunday Times 'Excellent ... [an] eye-opening account of the never-ending battles he fought' Rugby World 'Revelatory ... Unflinchingly charts his personal evolution ... He is not at all easy on himself' Keith Duggan, Irish Times

WINNER OF THE TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019 'Brutally honest . . . A moving, candid tale of a coach taking the plunge with a rugby ball as his only buoyancy aid' DAILY EXPRESS 'An engrossing account of a remarkable story' EVENING STANDARD 'An excellent read covering a brilliant journey' Sir Clive Woodward It is late summer 2013. Ben Ryan, a red-haired, 40-something, spectacle-wearing Englishman, is given 20 minutes to decide whether he wants to coach Fiji's rugby sevens team, with the aim of taking them to the nation's first-ever Olympic medal. He has never been to Fiji. There has been no discussion of contracts or salary. But he knows that no one plays rugby like the men from these isolated Pacific islands, just as no one plays football like the kids from the Brazilian favelas, or no one runs as fast as the boys and girls from Jamaica's boondocks. He knows too that no other rugby nation has so little - no money and no resources, only basic equipment and a long, sad history of losing its most gifted players to richer, greedier nations. Ryan says yes. And with that simple word he sets in motion an extraordinary journey that will encompass witchdoctors and rugby-obsessed prime ministers, sun-smeared dawns and devastating cyclones, intense friendships and bitter rows, phone taps and wild nationwide parties. It will end in Rio with a performance that not only wins Olympic gold but reaches fresh heights for rugby union and makes Ben and his 12 players living legends back home.

The South African rugby annual 2016 is the official record of an historic and memorable season in South African rugby and is widely considered to be the finest rugby yearbook in the world. The unrivalled ‘bible’ of the game continues to definitively chronicle the unfolding history of South African rugby and this 45th edition, at 704 pages, which includes a 32-page full-colour section of Springbok team and action photos, is the biggest to date – crammed with more records, amazing facts, milestones and memorable moments than ever before. Which Springbok has played more Rugby World Cup matches than anyone else? Which team went unbeaten in 2015 and lifted the most prized trophy in South African rugby? And just who were the tallest, shortest, heaviest & lightest players to take the field in a first-class match? With its unrivalled mix of rugby trivia, cutting-edge research and every record imaginable, the South African rugby annual 2016 will continue to settle arguments at braais across the land.

A sport popular in over 100 countries around the world, rugby is said to have originated when William Webb Ellis 'with fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time at Rugby school, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it, thus originating the distinctive feature of the Rugby game'. While the popular story of the schoolboy William Webb Ellis going rogue is an amusing anecdote, it is unlikely that the development of the game was sourced from one youngster's actions. Written in 1922, The Classic Guide to Rugby looks at the shape of the game after the First World War. A firmly established and popular sport at the time of writing, D. R. Gent, an ex-England international, tackles differing types of play, the qualities of a good captain, the temperament required to be a patient and fair referee, the spirit of the game and rugby's position in future society.

The bestselling autobiography of the greatest rugby player of our time: Brian O'Driscoll. Since 1999, when he made his international debut, there has been no greater player in world rugby than Brian O'Driscoll. In 2010 Rugby World magazine named him its world player of the decade - and since then the legend has only grown. Now, at the end of his amazing career - which culminated in fairy-tale fashion with Ireland's victory in the 2014 Six Nations championship - he tells his own story. Honest, gritty and thoughtful, Brian O'Driscoll's Autobiography is not just an essential sports book. It is an essential book about family, friends, hard work, courage and imagination. 'Honest, charming and revealing - a thoroughly good read' Rugby World 'A thoroughly enjoyable read ... After reading The Test I warmed even more to O'Driscoll as a player and a man. He stood for a new ethos in Irish sport that refused to accept mediocrity or glorious failure' Fergal Keane, Irish Times 'O'Driscoll's honesty ... takes the reader to a place they simply have not been before' Vincent Hogan, Irish Independent 'A must-read insight into the life and mind of Ireland's greatest rugby player' Irish Mail on Sunday 'There are fascinating insights into the lengths he was willing to go to perform at the highest level' Sunday Business Post