Rugby Memoirs

How the captains of the last 50 years have gone about leading the world's most successful rugby team. The job of All Blacks captain comes with a scrutiny that puts it alongside the prime minister in terms of profile and public expectation. It takes a strong, confident and assured personality to captain a team where failure is never tolerated.

Before 9/11, the rugby team at West Point learned to bond on a sports field. This is what happened when those fifteen young men became leaders in war. Filled with drama, tragedy, and personal transformations, this is the story of a unique brotherhood. It is a story of American rugby and a story of the U.S. Army created through intimate portraits of men shaped by West Point's motto: "Duty, Honor, Country."

It's rare for a referee in any sport to be popular, yet Nigel Owens has always courted strong affection throughout the world - loved by the players, coaches, officials, TV commentators and even fans. A real character, some of his famous put-downs whilst lecturing players, such as 'This is Not Soccer', have become huge social media hits. The best rugby referee of his generation, Nigel also has an incredible back story to tell.

Jamie Roberts is your quintessential hard man: a six-foot-four, 17-stone slab of rippling muscle, conditioned to run hard into other huge men in an arena where physical dominance is the prime currency. Yet away from rugby, he's a mild-mannered and thoughtful man - a qualified doctor with a thirst for knowledge and a curiosity about the world around him. It's an intriguing contradiction.

For the best part of five decades, within a hyper-masculine sporting environment, Danielle Laidley harboured a secret. As a boy growing up in the backblocks of Perth, as a teenager and young man playing AFL, as a married father of three, she knew she was female, regardless of the gender she was assigned at birth. For years Danielle lived a compartmentalised life, managing her secret first with a relentless quest for sporting success and workaholism, and eventually with substances that dulled the pain.

Everybody faces some degree of adversity at some stage in their lives, but very few have faced as many challenges as Floyd Steadman. Rejected by his father, he coped with a childhood in care. Told he should train to "work with his hands", he insisted on taking A levels, so he could become a teacher. As one of the few Black players in the English club rugby, he was named Saracens captain at the age of 23 and played a leading role in the club’s progress during the 1980s. Many thought he might have played for England, but he was never selected.

Having a relationship in the spotlight is hard enough, but in Currently Between Husbands, Cathrine Mahoney details the unique experience of breaking up with one of Australia's highest profile sport stars. Even for a self-confessed over-sharer, the breakdown of her marriage to rugby league player Andrew Johns was more public than she was used to. In her first book, the writer, podcaster, and publicist provides a self-deprecating and hilarious look at her life.

Once described as rugby’s answer to Ant & Dec, David Flatman and Mark Durden-Smith are the oddest of odd couples. Now this hugely popular rugby broadcasting double act have turned to dissecting and celebrating rugby union in audiobook form. And, as you’d expect, it’s a brilliant combination of in-depth knowledge and hilarious stories.

In the autumn of 2010, a little-known New Zealander called Joe Schmidt took over as head coach at Leinster. He had never been in charge of a professional team. After Leinster lost three of their first four games, a prominent Irish rugby pundit speculated that Schmidt had 'lost the dressing room'. Nine years on, Joe Schmidt has stepped down as Ireland coach having achieved success on a scale never before seen in Irish rugby.

Warren Gatland's In the Line of Fire is the ultimate chronicle of this summer's remarkable Lions tour to New Zealand - home of the fearsome All Blacks, the double world champions - which culminated in a historic and nerve-shredding series draw. The book is the Head Coach's wonderfully candid and vibrant record of the withering ferocity, the turbulent peaks and troughs and the triumphs and despairs of one of sport's toughest challenges.

In the brutal world of rugby league, Mark 'Spudd' Carroll is one of the most fearsome players to ever lace on a boot. An enforcer who would do everything in his power to ensure victory for his team - including a pre-game ritual of eating 16 potatoes, hence the nickname. Spudd is from a rugged era where, even if concussed, players climbed to their feet and threw themselves back into the fray. In stints with the Panthers, Rabbitohs and Sea Eagles, his search-and-destroy missions each weekend made his matches compulsory viewing.

Wrecking Ball is a captivating and humorous memoir by Billy Vunipola, one of the stars of England's recent rugby renaissance, and will be enjoyed by those who have read the recent autobiographies by Jonny Wilkinson, Brian O'Driscoll, Dan Carter and Paul O'Connell. Standing at 6 feet 2 inches and weighing almost 20 stone, Billy is a rampaging and unmissable presence on the rugby pitch, for both club and country.

Johnathan Thurston is widely regarded as rugby league's greatest player. This autobiography will follow Thurston's journey from a Brisbane kid who was written off as too skinny, too slow, and too wild to play professionally, to his debut with the Canterbury Bulldogs in 2003, to State of Origin star, to Dally M and Clive Churchill Medal winner, and the fairytale premierships.

Far away from the bright lights of international rugby, there is another version of the game played by ordinary blokes of all shapes, sizes and degrees of physical ability. Steven Gauge was the last person anyone would expect to find on a rugby field, being somewhat shorter than average, bespectacled and decidedly 'unsporty'. But as a gentleman of a certain age when strange life choices are sometimes made, Steven chose to pick up a rugby ball and run with it.

This story uncovers the distinguished, but forgotten, rugby career of Eric Bole. Rugby fans will enjoy learning about Bole’s rugby career, which spanned the 1940s. Bole played for the England national team in the Victory Internationals, won three County Championships with Lancashire, and captained the Cambridge University rugby team for two years. Listen to and be inspired by Eric Bole's incredible career, today!

Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award, this is a scorching and deeply personal autobiography that lifts the lid on the life and character of one of English rugby's most successful players. Brian Moore, or 'Pitbull' as he came to be known during nearly a decade at the heart of the England rugby team's pack, established himself as one of the game's original hard men at a time when rugby was still an amateur sport.

From his days growing up in Scotland to his harrowing experiences fighting in Italy during World War Two, Bill McLaren has always been in the thick of it. Used to being caught up in the most dramatic moments rugby has ever seen, McLaren relives the highlights of his illustrious career, and talks of the game today and his regrets that rugby went professional.