Netflix’s ‘Six Nations: Full Contact’ follows the English, French, Welsh, Italian, Irish and Scottish men’s rugby teams during the 2023 Six Nations Championship.
Sporting documentaries are everywhere at the moment – Amazon’s ‘All or Nothing’ anthology has focussed on top teams while Netflix’s endeavours, starting with ‘Drive to Survive’, cover popular but not ubiquitous, sports. Tennis, Formula 1, golf, and now rugby, are coming into the spotlight.
Over eight episodes, ‘Six Nations: Full Contact’ goes behind the scenes in each nation’s training camp, with interviews from players and coaches, centred around matchday highlights. It succeeds in showing the human side of the players, with diverse backgrounds represented across the teams. Rugby’s physicality is also heavily emphasised with clips from matches and workouts, and rightly so, given it’s a defining feature of the sport.
The ‘Drive to Survive’ series was hugely successful. In the years since, streaming services have been flooded with sports documentaries. By almost every metric, Formula 1 has benefitted from the series. Ticket sales, social media following and TV audiences have all increased, especially among young and female spectators.
British rugby desperately needs a pep in its step. Over the last year and a half, 4 high-profile English clubs have gone bust and Welsh players threatened strike action in last year’s Six Nations. At the start of this season, English Premiership attendance dropped by 1,000 per match. Right now, rugby feels a lot less sustainable. Whether this documentary will be revolutionary is uncertain. Some argue ‘Drive to Survive’ succeeded in part from coincidence with COVID lockdowns when we had little else to do.
Generating interest in rugby can be a challenge. The rules are complicated and ever evolving. During the opening weekend of this year’s Six Nations, commentators spent more time clarifying rules of the games, likely to accommodate first-time viewers. The BBC were also keen to signpost their Sunday night highlights show and their ‘Six Nations Daily’ podcast to keep fans engaged.
Explanation of the game’s rules was a point of criticism, as there was no explanation. Given an eight episode run, there must have been time to run through some basics. Reviews from the Guardian and the Independent have been unfavourable, highlighting how the one-man interview style of other Netflix documentaries doesn’t fit here, and that of all team sports, rugby is rarely won by individual superstars. The historical aspect of the tournament and the rivalries between the participating nations were also largely unexplored, despite some journalists emphasising these are the greatest strengths of the tournament. The rugby calendar doesn’t quite allow for the Netflix formula either. Since the 2023 Six Nations, there has been a World Cup and many high-profile retirements from the sport. New viewers from ‘Full Contact’ may still feel quite lost if they tune into this year’s games.
Ultimately, it’s hard for rugby nerds like me to know how successful the documentary will be. It frankly doesn’t add much for existing rugby fans to appreciate and ignores the tournament’s selling points. Although exact viewing figures have not yet been released by Netflix, ‘Full Contact’ has reached an initial audience matching that of Drive to Survive after four seasons. Rugby needs this to be successful but only time will tell.
The 2024 Men’s Six Nations Championship continues on 24 February live on BBC and ITV.
Rating: 3/5
Featured Image Credit: Six Nations Rugby