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 exploits of the people’s heroes from Gould to Gareth Edwards. The beauty and exhilaration of the game is vividly recaptured in some classic prose. So too are the emotions and expectations of the most passionate followers in the world. They deserve the best team we can put out. Here it is, a selection of world-beating writing on British rugby.

Gareth Williams has written and broadcast extensively on the sporting and musical history of South Wales. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including Fields of Praise, Valleys of Song, and Wales and its Boxers, and a former history professor and director of the Center for Modern and Contemporary Wales at the University of Glamorgan. Gerald Davies is one of the acknowledged greats of Welsh rugby, playing for Cardiff RFC and London Welsh. He is also a journalist for the Times and a chairman of the Wales Youth Agency.