Rugby’s drive to take the game to a wider audience is likely to gain momentum from the newly launched Netflix series, Full Contact.
The series, which trains its focus on last year’s Six Nations, was launched on the eve of this year’s tournament, which perhaps immediately places it at a disadvantage as a year in professional sport often translates to an eternity.
The series is perhaps not for the sport’s aficionados.
As was the case with the other series in the streaming service’s sports bouquet Drive to Survive (F1), Break Point (tennis) and Full Swing (golf), Full Contact is not aimed at the sport’s established consumer. Those with a passing interest in the sport, especially during the Rugby World Cup, Rugby Championship and Six Nations, will, however, find appeal in the series.
“How tough do you have to be to play rugby?” are the first words spoken in the series, perhaps serves as warning shot to the game’s traditional base that they will learn very little in a rugby sense from the series.
While Full Contact, like the other sports series offers the viewer “explainers” that might irritate rugby’s rank and file, it too provides unprecedented changeroom, training field and general behind-the-scenes access.
It is the one element that all who tune in can agree on. The voyeuristic currency that courses through Netflix’s other sports series, is very much in evidence in Full Contact.
It takes eyes and ears behind doors that have perennially been shut to the wider audience.
Slowly but surely there is the realisation that the world is wider than the eight or so federations that have traditionally ruled the sport.
Rugby needs doors unlocked. For too long rugby bosses created a sterile environment where every word is weighted and measured. Players, coaches and referees pretty much repeat things from the same carefully prepared hymn sheet and any deviation from that may meet sanction.
No wonder they are seen as robots, zombies, or worse, characterless.
Full Contact, however, brings characters to life. There are some powerful narratives. In particular, that of Italy loose forward Sebastian Negri and England prop Ellis Genge, who have storied, yet disparate, upbringings.
Negri was the victim of rotten timing growing up on a farm in Zimbabwe, while Genge as a youth wasn’t so much dispossessed the opportunities his now teammates used to luxuriate in, as stand in ignorance of what life was like on the other side of the tracks.
He had to knuckle down after white-knuckle formative years.
The series also explores the contrasting fortunes of some of the Six Nations’ virtuoso talents. Finn Russell’s “some people might say I’m good to watch; if you’re a football fan you might think I’m like Messi or someone like that”, might be easily misconstrued.
The Scotland flyhalf has a multilayered personality of which self-belief is the bedrock.
His fortunes are juxtaposed with that of rising star Marcus Smith, who travelled the unlikely road to Test rugby for England from the Philippines.
Shining a light on the game’s characters is long overdue. Earlier this week recently retired Test referee Jaco Peyper told me how the protective blanket the game has thrown over the sport has stunted its growth. Worse, as a result the game’s elite athletes and match officials are misunderstood.
Rugby’s era of glasnost did not arrive by chance or accident. It has required a significant shake-up at boardroom level with the old jacket-and-tie brigade gradually ceding power to new, often forward-thinking investors.
In the case of the Six Nations there is little doubt that CVC Capital Partners with their one seventh buy-in in 2021, has helped bring fresh ideas and perspective.
Slowly but surely there is the realisation that the world is wider than the eight or so federations that have traditionally ruled the sport.
Full Contact might rub the game’s know-it-alls up the wrong way, but it is likely to score with the uninitiated.
