Sporting fly-on-the-wall documentaries almost invariably centre on the success of a team or individual, and in that respect EMI Music Ireland, the producers of Reaching for Glory, The Inside Story from the Dressing Room, in rugby parlance, hit the crossbar in their decision to follow Ireland through this year's Six Nations Championship.

It could have been the definitive video record of a Grand Slam and Six Nations Championship victory; instead, a couple of late tries in the matches against France and Italy scuppered those aspirations, and Eddie O'Sullivan's charges had to be content with a third Triple Crown in four years.

That's a cavil about an excellent production that offers sports, rather than just rugby fans, a window into team talks, dressing-rooms, training sessions, hotels and coach journeys involving the national team. Player interviews provide the sound track.

RTÉ will screen an abridged version of the EMI DVD next Monday (9.20pm, RTÉ 2).

The documentary charts the Irish team's progress from the November Test series and the final Test at Lansdowne Road in its present guise against the Pacific Islands to the corridors of Croke Park and their trawl through European rugby's elite tournament for their holy grail: the Grand Slam.

In keeping with documentaries of this ilk, some viewer's might be offended by the expletives liberally sprinkled throughout, but these merely reflect the passion of adult professional sport, an authentic barometer of feelings in high-pressure situations.

The dressingroom scenes - they hold the most powerful imagery - provide a fascinating insight into the passion, motivation and characters within the team and management.

None epitomises this raw emotion more than coach Eddie O'Sullivan's impassioned speech to his team seconds before they take the field against England; Churchillian, but in the vernacular.

The DVD opens in the Westin Excelsior hotel in Rome on the Via Veneto, where the Ireland team and supporters are captured watching the final moments of France's victory over Scotland and their reaction to the try by Elvis Vermuelen that wins the tournament for the French.

There is a brief overview of the November Test series voiced by players that culminates in a lighter moment involving Donncha O'Callaghan and Patrick Rala O'Reilly, the team's baggage master. Indeed Rala is centre stage for the comic moments that includes a shampoo and set, administered by Peter Stringer.

On that theme, the players are not averse to offering each other a little ribbing.

There are failed fitness tests, those of Malcolm O'Kelly and Brian O'Driscoll, images of Denis Leamy and Paul O'Connell boxing in the gym, O'Callaghan swimming, Stringer lifting weights, O'Sullivan talking tactics with the aid of a white board and fielding a media interview complete with bed hair.

One of the more striking moments is the transparent and unaffected reaction of several players when shown footage of Vincent Clerc's match-winning try for France against Ireland in the first rugby match at Croke Park: wide-eyed disappointment.

It is the England match, though, that offers the most vivid insight into this collection of players and coaches: the earthy rhetoric, the latent aggression and desire and the quiet satisfaction as the players look back on the occasion.

Paul O'Connell's half-time address in the dressingroom summed up the collective feeling:

"There's no one feeling that f***ing tired. I feel like I haven't played yet. There's so much more in us. We should be talking about putting up a score here, not their purple patch. We should be going bananas for 40 minutes."

This documentary will appeal on a broad spectrum not necessarily in its entirety but there are nuggets there for most sports enthusiasts.

The flip side of this dual layer DVD includes an action-packed 52 minutes of extra angles on the 31 Irish tries scored during the November test series and Six Nations Championship and interview out-takes.

Reaching for Glory, The Inside Story from the Dressing Room, will be released tomorrow.