Neil Robertson can’t wait to see Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Edge of Everything, putting the Rocket alongside the likes of Tiger Woods and Roger Federer in the pantheon of sporting greats.
The new documentary hits cinemas on Tuesday 21 November, with a release on Prime Video two days later and Robertson is fascinated to see how the film has turned out.
There has been no shortage of brilliant sporting documentaries over recent years and the Thunder from Down Under hopes this one lives up to them and will attract a big audience, benefiting snooker going forward.
‘Yeah I can’t wait. You know me, I love all my sports,’ Robertson told Metro.co.uk. ‘If you’re not even a fan of snooker you have to watch that.
‘I’ve seen little snippets of it and I hope it’s going to be what we’re hoping for. When I saw The Last Dance, I was a massive Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan fan in the 90s, and I was hoping it would be as good as it turned out to be. I hope the same for this one. I’m fascinated to see it.
‘I’m sure a lot of people will watch it and it gets a lot of people talking. It’s what we need.
‘There’s good players coming through but no one is Ronnie O’Sullivan, Ronnie is Ronnie. Tiger Woods is Tiger Woods. Federer is Federer. He’s in that bracket of sportsmen who are able to do what they do.’
Robertson has had plenty of experience against the Rocket over the years, with the pair first playing way back in 2005.
The Australian only recently discovered a ploy O’Sullivan used in their 2012 World Championship quarter-final by reading his recent autobiography, and he is hoping for similar insights from The Edge of Everything.
‘Ronnie’s latest book, I was flicking through it on the way to the Shanghai Masters, I picked it up in WH Smith’s before jumping on the flight,’ explained Robertson.
‘He talks about who he sees as the great players who can push him. He only named a few and I was one of them.
‘He mentioned our match in the 2012 World Championship, which people saw as the final, I was 5-3 up and he’s talking about pretending to look like he really fancied it, he wasn’t fazed and he was going to get on top and it was so funny that he didn’t feel great but he had to show that he did feel great.
‘The funny thing is, that was the effect that it had. He came out in the second session and I was really confused, I was like, “What the hell? He really fancies this!” But now I know he was putting on an act. It was fascinating hearing he didn’t fancy winning the match but had to pretend he did and it worked. 13-10.’
Robertson has a remarkable tale to tell of his own, becoming the most successful player from outside the British Isles, overcoming all the difficulties that comes with playing such a UK-centric sport.
He intends to tell that story at some stage and hopes it will be inspirational for anyone trying to take a similar path.
Asked whether his own career could be the subject of a documentary, Robertson said: ‘Yeah I think at some point, certainly it’s a different type of story. No one’s achieved what I have coming from the other side of the world.
‘Hopefully it would be an inspirational story if it was done right. I definitely plan on bringing out an autobiography later on, I think it would be good. I’m a big sports fan and fan of sporting biographies, so I think I know what would work.
‘It’s about telling a story to inspire other people, that’s the goal, that’s what you really want to do.’
MORE : Ronnie O’Sullivan admits documentary was ‘hard to watch’ and tells fans not to worry about him
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