We all like choosing the best-ever rugby team, but here is a XV with a difference. A team of fifteen writers, not players, describe the exhilaration of the game, and the emotions of the most passionate followers in the world, in some classic prose. They deserve the best team we can put on the field. Here it is - a selection of world-beating writing on rugby.

With an introduction by Gerald Davies, the featured authors include Richard Burton, Gwyn Thomas, Frank Keating, Alun Richards and many more.