Rob Burrow allows cameras to film his fight against MND - compulsive BBC documentary on Leeds Rhinos legend

Sally Nugent, the BBC presenter, perhaps sums it up best when speaking about a trio of top-class sportsmen – Leeds Rhinos legend Rob Burrow, former Liverpool player Stephen Darby and ex-Scotland rugby union lock Doddie Weir– who are all battling it head on together.

“They are in a team no-one wants to be on, against an opponent no-one can out-run,” she says, in a documentary entitled ‘Rob Burrow: My Year with MND’, which will be aired tonight on BBC2 at 7pm.

It is particularly telling in respect of Burrow; anyone who watched the scrum-half in his prime, slicing through Super League defences almost at will or speeding around in England colours, will know he could out-run anyone.

That was every opponent’s fear; allow him the space and he would be gone. He was the ‘Roadrunner’.

But this superb documentary – at times so heart-wrenching yet also so uplifting – does not chronicle a greying, man reminiscing about his career decades ago.

Burrow is 38. He retired just three years ago. He would never have imagined then, having won an eighth Grand Final with his beloved Leeds, that he would now be barely able to speak, or walk, or require a wheelchair, all the time knowing he may not see his 39th birthday.

Former Bradford City defender Darby was still playing when he was diagnosed in 2018. He is only 32. Weir turned 50 in the summer. MND does not care one jot.

As Barrie McDermott, Burrow’s former Rhinos team-mate explains, Burrow’s wife Lindsey, who features heavily in the programme, is essentially now his full-time carer.

He was only given the heartbreaking news that he was suffering from the rare condition, that affects the brain and nerves and causes weakness that gets worse over time, in December.

Since then, Burrow, with remarkable courage and braveness, has done so much to raise awareness of the disease and inspired so many people to perform feats to raise money in the ongoing bid to help find a cure.

He has no need or no obligation to allow cameras to record so many intimate moments over this last year – birthday moments with his three young children, sat on a bedroom floor feeding his baby boy Jackson, a family outing to Filey – but, since day one, his indefatigable spirit has shone through.

Burrow has tackled matters with the same zeal as he did opponents when – at five foot four inches – he was almost always the smallest player on the field, in stature at least.

The documentary starts with some old video footage of Burrow as a child playing with Featherstone Lions, a tiny figure in the distance stepping past and accelerating beyond far bigger players, sequences that became all so familiar as he developed into one of the sport’s greatest.

His dad Geoff recalls how onlookers would say he was really good but would never make it as a professional because he would not be big enough. How foolish.

Later, as the programme charts how Burrow is dealing with the degenerative disease on a day-to-day basis, his dad breaks down when saying: “I have been proud of everything Rob’s achieved – but I’ve never felt as proud as I do now.”

It is an incredibly moving moment – there are so many littered throughout the half-hour programme – and one which perfectly captures the emotions the Burrow family continues to go through.

Kevin Sinfield, the Rhinos captain who was alongside him in all but one of those eight Old Trafford victories and throughout the vast majority of his 17-year Headingley career, gives his insight into how Burrow has coped with the condition.

He has been such a rock for his former team-mate since the diagnosis, helping to set up meetings with Weir and Darby, and there is footage of that moment he literally offers his shoulder to cry on when Burrow breaks down during one of his initial BBC interviews after the diagnosis.

In this programme, Sinfield, renowned for being so composed in everything he does, is left in tears, too, as he talks about Burrow, the enormity of it all falling in on him.

He rightly points out how Burrow has the rugby community backing his fight “but what about the postman, the bricklayer or the factory worker who works five days a week and doesn’t have that network or support?”

With that in mind, Burrow has always said he has “too many reasons to live” to let the disease defeat him and that shines through here but he also knows the work he is inspiring now will also help others in need and ultimately help that fight to find a cure.

His voice has quickly deteriorated but, with the use of technology, he has recorded it so he can now speak through a phone.

“I want to be able to tell the kids off – and tell them I love them,” Burrow says, when sat with Weir and Darby.

At the end of the documentary, he sits in his garden with Nugent and speaks through his phone, thanking her for all her help in doing so much for highlighting the cause.

Still thinking of others, smiling, still with his thumbs up, still fighting, still determined to beat this horrible disease with that strong mindset that aided him so much throughout his wonderful playing career.

No-one expected any different, really. A true warrior. Please watch.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson