Irish Rugby Doc Shows Sport Where Everyone Belongs

Four Irish rugby teams are rewriting the rules about who gets to play sports, and a new documentary is capturing every tackle, triumph, and moment of pure belonging.

"Try!" premieres at Sheffield DocFest this June, following players with and without physical and learning disabilities as they train through frozen Irish winters and compete at the Mixed Ability Rugby World Cup in Spain. Thirty-two teams from sixteen countries gathered to play full-contact rugby where inclusion isn't a goal but the foundation.

Director Oisín Mistéil stumbled onto Mixed Ability Rugby in 2022 when the World Cup came to Cork, Ireland. After attending just a few training sessions, he knew he'd found something special.

"Once we got down there and met some of the teams and players, it was like, 'Oh my god, what an incredible community!'" Mistéil recalls. The challenge wasn't finding a story but choosing which of the many amazing characters to follow.

The tackles are real, the competition is fierce, and nobody gets left on the sidelines. What makes Mixed Ability Rugby different is that winning takes a backseat to what truly matters: the connections formed through shared mud, bruises, and tries.

Mistéil admits he used to think "it's about taking part" was just a cliché. Playing football now, he's chasing a division seven championship that won't matter when he's 80. "I'm not going to remember if we won division seven, but I'm going to remember the moments, I'm going to remember the connections," he says.

Filming required 32 days before the World Cup plus three cameras running simultaneously during competition. The team never knew which games would deliver drama or which teams would make the finals, so they captured everything they could.

The Ripple Effect

The documentary does more than showcase an inspiring sport. It's changing how we think about ability itself.

"It's a sports documentary, but it's also a Trojan horse for a film about people and their abilities and what they've overcome," Mistéil explains. The atmosphere on and off the pitch radiates positivity, humor, and a refreshing lack of self-seriousness.

The filmmaking team took extra care with their subjects, creating simplified release forms and ensuring every player understood the process. Trust grew stronger over months of shooting, and the vulnerability players showed on camera was always their choice.

Mixed Ability Rugby forgets the stuff that doesn't matter because the sport remembers what does: belonging built through shared experience, where the celebration after a try matters just as much as scoring it.