Rucking and Rolling: 60 Years of Rugby Union

by PeterBills (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  

  $4.20

  Irish rugby union is widely acknowledged to have made the transition to professionalism more successfully than other middle-ranking rugby powers and Ireland have churned out some good results. Rucking and Rolling is an international history that shows decade by decade how interest in the sport spread from the eight major nations, into mainland Europe, across the Atlantic to the Americas, and across the Indian Ocean to the Polynesian Islands and south Asia. Since the Second World War, the sport has burgeoned into a multi-million euro business and this book follows the rise of the sport, from the first and only Irish Grand Slam in 1948 to the great English teams of the 1950s, the legendary Welsh teams of the 1960s and 1970s, the exciting French teams of the 1980s and 1990s, the growth of Australian rugby, the Lions and Barbarians tours and the traditional power houses of South Africa and of course, the awesome All Blacks. From its origins as an amateur sport, to its modern-day professionalism, rugby union has undergone immense changes. Like all other major sports, rugby union has had more than its fair share of controversy and politics, and this book, like the game itself, has met the conflict head on.