We all like choosing the best-ever Welsh rugby team, but here is a XV with a difference. Here they are not players but writers. The exploits of the people's heroes from Gould to Gareth Edwards are vividly recaptured in some classic prose. So too are the expectations and emotions of the most passionate followers in the world. They deserve the best team we can put out. Here it is, a selection of world beating writing on Welsh rugby: The First XV. With an introduction by Gerald Davies, the featured authors include Richard Burton, Gwyn Thomas, Frank Keating, Alun Richards and many more.

SHORTLISTED FOR RUGBY BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE 2020 TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS. 'excellent' Donald McRae, The Guardian 'Gatland is the master' Sir Ian McGeechan 'Gatland is a coaching star' Sir Clive Woodward 'Gats is one of the all-time great coaches' Sam Warburton Warren Gatland is one of the world's most renowned and intriguing rugby coaches of the modern era, leading Wales to four Six Nations titles, three Grand Slams and two World Cup semi-finals and masterminding two history-making tours as Head Coach of the British and Irish Lions. As he leaves his post as Head Coach of Wales at the end of the 2019 Rugby World Cup, Gatland's definitive autobiography provides a colourful and vivid chronicle of an extraordinary three decades at rugby's dynamic coal-face. The personal journey has been rewarding and challenging in equal measure, spanning many of the sport's most passionate heartlands such as New Zealand, Ireland, England and, of course, Wales. Gatland reflects in characteristically forthright and intelligent fashion on a lifetime spent playing and coaching the sport which has been his passion since as a young boy he first picked up an oval ball on New Zealand's North Island, dreaming of joining the ranks of the mighty All Blacks. Along the way we encounter the greatest matches, players and rivalries the sport has to offer, get introduced to a stunning cast of unforgettable characters who grace the story with their humour and humanity, and emerge with a striking appreciation of what makes this outstanding rugby man tick.

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. 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 . . .