Six Nations: Full Contact review – Irish rugby fans could feel short-changed by this series

For now, though, the meat of its sports coverage remains big budget documentary and Six Nations: Full Contact, its first rugby miniseries, is the latest of these. The format is fairly simple: the filmmakers cover the build-up to each game in the competition, the action on the pitch itself, and spotlight a player’s personal story – a key part of reaching the average fan who doesn’t understand the nuances of the sport.

The tennis series Break Point suffered from a lack of access: the players who were giving the sport its biggest storylines over the period covered – Novak Djokovic and Coco Gauff to name but two – barely got a mention, presumably because they declined to have cameras follow them around.

In one way this rugby series seems to have surmounted that problem in that all of the participating teams have allowed dressing-room access, as well as interviews with key players and coaches.

The opening episode follows Scotland’s build-up to their game against England and focuses on Finn Russell, who has had a sometimes rocky relationship with selectors.

The second episode deals with the run-up to the England v Italy game and spotlights two players with very different backgrounds to England’s rugby schoolboy rank and file: Ellis Genge, who grew up in working class Bristol and was “saved” by his talent for rugby; and Marc