The Oval World

Rugby has always been a sport with as much drama off the field as on it. For every thrilling last-minute Jonny Wilkinson drop-goal to win the world cup or Jonah Lomu rampage down the touchline for a try, there has been a split, a feud or a controversy.

The Oval World is the first full-length history of rugby on a world scale - from its origins in the village-based football games of medieval times up to the globalised sport of the twenty-first century, now played in well over 100 countries.

It tells the story of how a game played in an obscure English public school became the winter sport of the British Empire, spread to France, Argentina, Japan and the rest of the world and commanded a global television audience of over four billion for the last world cup final.