THE MOVIE

The Bledisloe Cup is an event without peer on the New Zealand and Australian rugby calendars. The World Cup, Super 12 and the Tri Nations series can in some senses be seen as distractions to the main event. This documentary looks at the history of the cup from the late 1970’s, when the Wallabies began to shake off their tag of “the woeful wallabies” to the World Cup of 1991 and includes an extra 55 minutes of footage not shown on the ABC. Presented by Peter Fitzsimmons and utilising archival footage and contemporary interviews with the key movers and shakers (including Bob Dwyer, Michael Lynagh, David Campese, Alan Jones, Grant Fox and Stu Wilson) this is a fascinating and well constructed documentary. The only drawback is that there are only six chapters on the DVD, which makes it difficult to re-look at certain sections of the documentary with any precision.

THE TRANSFER

Video:

The quality of the video is variable due to the large amount of archival footage used in the documentary (Bit rate 2.5-5 mbps). There are some video artefacts. Colours are natural for the contemporary footage, while the detailing is a little soft at times. Some of the interviews have been very badly lit and shot.

Audio:

The audio is generally good (Bit rate 224 kbps), with no lip syncing errors and a clear and distinct score. Not having a 5.1 surround sound does not diminish the enjoyment of watching the documentary.

THE EXTRAS

The DVD has the following extras:

Colin “Pinetree” Meads interacts with Ken Catchpole

The Up the Jumper Try

Stan the Man

The Ella Brothers

Glen Ella “Captain of Australia”

Gordon Bray’s 1982 Third Test Preview

1991 Bledisloe Cup Preview

QLD v NSW – 1979

Stu Wilson loses the Cup

From the cutting room floor

The extras are a mixture of archival TV news reports, news footage and contemporary interviews (generally 4:3). Of these the Ella brothers TV news report is particularly interesting, serving to highlight how remarkable the whole Ella family is from a sporting perspective. The interview snippets in the cutting room floor is made colourful by David Campese espousing his theory about forwards being of little use in the game of rugby. Whilst the standout has to be the short overview of the larger than life character Stan the Man, a huge forward whose idea of training was swaying side to side, drinking beer and smoking. For those with a predilection for the darker side of the game the interaction between Pinetree and Catchpole is particularly nasty.

SUMMARY

An excellent documentary about one of the defining events in world rugby is given an excellent DVD release.