Spotlight: Wheelchair Rugby

Yorkshire Post

Nick Westby looks at the growth and success of wheelchair rugby by hooking up with the Leeds Rhinos Foundation at Leeds Beckett University ...

Transcript

00:00So, how did you get into wheelchair rugby then, Cam?

00:28Well, I got in contact with my university and the people that run the sport there because

00:38after my diagnosis and after I lost into my legs, I was missing sport and then I went

00:45to speak to the sports office and they were like, yeah we'll see what we can do, so I

00:48tried a whole bunch of sports at uni that were fun but never really got the right feel

00:55and then Sheila, the main person in charge, put me in contact with Ed, I got Ed's email

01:02address, I emailed him and said, can I just come along to a training session and try it

01:06out and he was like, yeah, did it and just absolutely loved it and then just stayed.

01:11And how long were you from that moment to being a Super League champion with Ed Reiner?

01:17So I started in February, it was a week before my birthday actually and then in June, what's

01:26that, four?

01:27Four months?

01:28Four or so months later I made my Super League debut against Hull and then in October we

01:34won the Grand Five.

01:35So within the space of a year you went from never having played this before to being part

01:39of a Super League winning team?

01:40Yeah.

01:41Amazing.

01:42Were you quite sporty before your diagnosis though?

01:45Yeah, I played a lot of cricket, I was down playing cricket six, normally five or six

01:49days a week, absolutely loved it, I'd cycle fairly regularly, my parents would just go out

01:55for cycle rides and still a bit, especially over lockdown we did a challenge, it's like try

02:02and do a hundred miles a month, so we did that for most of lockdown.

02:07So yeah, I've always been very sporty and very competitive and yeah, just missing that.

02:14And what is it about this sport, other than the speed with which you can become a national

02:19champion, attracted you to it?

02:22I think for me one of the big things is I really value the independence of it, which

02:29sounds a bit odd but my life in a wheelchair is a wheelchair user is a lot of things I can't

02:35do necessarily by myself.

02:37Yeah.

02:38And so it's a lot of asking people for help with stuff, whereas in this, when you're on

02:42that pitch, obviously you've got your teammates to help you in the play but there's no special

02:47treatment or problem, it's getting smashed out of your chair, same as everyone else.

02:50It's just like, I love how close it is to the actual sport, the actual sport is wrong.

02:57A lot of wheelchair sports are very adapted and a lot of the rules are different.

03:03But World Rugby League is literally rugby league in a wheelchair.

03:07There's, you know, rather than grabbing people to the floor, you're taking their tags under the

03:11nap, it's literally the same game.

03:12So I think that's something for me.

03:14It was like, that was a good, a really positive sport for me.

03:27You, you, you're, you're, you're.

03:28I mean, I feel like I'm not too capacitively, you know, if you have some reasons to get

03:42that window and you're going to be comfortable.

03:45And you're going to be careful.

03:46And that's what you're going to do.

03:48You're going to be careful.

03:49And, you know, you're going to be careful.

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