With all the hype currently sweeping the country with the Rugby World Cup gracing our shores, the release of Rugby DVDs was inevitable. Rugby fans will be cheering, while many others will not really care, but no doubt the target market here would be the bandwagon jumpers that get swept up in the hype and suddenly find themselves converts to the game they apparently play in Heaven.

Campo!

Stars of Australian Rugby – Heroes of the Modern Game is a great release for purists, but is it going to satisfy newcomers to the sport? What it contains is a series of highlights of several games of the Wallabies, included in this are many star players from recent times. The games featured include several Bledisloe Cup games against New Zealand along with many record breaking test and Tri-Nation games.

"Go you good thing!"

There is the 76-0 drubbing of a second string English team, that kick from John Eales in the 2000 Bledisloe Cup to snatch victory and many other highlights to satisfy most Wallabies fans. The disappointing fact here, though, is the absence of any World Cup games and the focus being placed mainly on games against fierce rivals New Zealand.

Joe Roff scores another try.

The real sad fact for this release is that it seems to be undecided as to whether it is a profile of star players or a general highlights package and it really falls short on both accounts. Purists will enjoy reliving the highlights captured here, but I feel that newcomers to the sport will be left wanting. The game has not been professional for that long, but many of the star players featured here have enough highlights to warrant a release each, yet this compilation only really contains a minimal collection.

Picture quality varies with this release, due to the range of source material used. It is supplied in a full screen format and, dependent on the footage used, can go from very good quality to very average. On the poorer quality footage, the biggest problems are grain, artefacts and pixelisation whereas the better footage is still not perfect, but is of a much higher standard.

Audio comes in Dolby Digital 2.0 and does the job adequately. Dialogue is sharp and apart from some minor distortion during loud crowd noises, there is little wrong with this audio track. After all, a reference quality sound mix is not required for this kind of feature so as long as you expect nothing better than standard television-quality sound, you will be satisfied here.

In the extras department, we have player profiles for 15 stars of Australian Rugby. Each profile contains footage of that player, but does seem more a filler than a worthy addition. Players featured are Burke, Eales, Gregan, Horan, Kefu, Little, Smith, Wilson, Campese, Finegan, Herbert, Kearns, Larkham, Roff and Tune.

Overall this is a release that seems to have the right intentions - to attract new fans to the game and capitalise on the hype sweeping the country at the moment - but it sadly falls short. Rugby fans should find enough here to perhaps warrant purchase, but even they may be disappointed by the selection of highlights used. Picture quality varies and audio is acceptable. The extras are more filler than quality additions so if you are a purist of the game you may enjoy this collection.