By TOM COYD
WE’RE trying to build out the pathways within wheelchair rugby league on the back of the way the England national performance squad has been developed over the period of the last three World Cup cycles.
Pre-2013 it was a fairly closed shop to be an England player, there was little connection with the rest of the league, there were very few new caps given out.
After that we were better resourced, and what we have been wary of this last couple of years is that we didn’t want a disconnect between the top 16 players and the rest as the domestic competition continues to get better.
Those elite players are training and playing more and more often as best against the best so their level is getting increasingly stronger, and we didn’t want to leave behind the guys and girls that have a lot of potential but who might spend the best years of their career not being in the National Performance Squad, if we’re not careful.
What we looked to do last year – and have built on it coming into 2025 – is plug that gap. We’ve put in extra levels of the pathway, from being a domestic club player, moving through a national development programme and then graduating into the NPS.
We want to provide as many opportunities as we can for the most talented performers that are in the pyramid, by the end of this season there will be more than 600 active players, and we need to capitalise on that.
Alongside, there are women’s and junior pathways and unless we incorporate them, we would only be doing part of the job required.
Winning the World Cup in 2022 made a massive impact in terms of people wanting to play the sport – especially youngsters who have gone to their local club and are maturing into young adults now.
They may not be ready at this moment to play for their country however. We should have structures in place to build in age level brackets with which to monitor them.
Similarly, we want to bring together the best women to show that there is a place for them and that it’s not just the biggest or most experienced men that are going to dominate playing for England moving forward.
What I love the most about the game is that it’s open to everybody and we need to work hard to make sure that remains the case. We are continuing to maintain that diversity as best we can. It’s proven that a group that is diverse functions better.
For it to fully work, we’ve got to have age group and women’s teams to play against, so it would be great to see this replicated in other nations.
We’ve loads in common with the home nations. We are looking for players from the same pool and, hopefully, as the number one ranked team we can lead by example and prove to the other countries that this programme is productive and rewarding.
We’re working really hard to ensure our international calendar provides as many genuine competitive opportunities as possible because it’s trial by fire in many ways – you learn the most from the most challenging circumstances. You’ve got to experience failure as well as success.
We can’t bill ourselves as the most inclusive sport in the world if the number one ranked team doesn’t have any women in it – which has been the case for the last few years, and it’s something we want to change. We have to support this ourselves.
Any system has to have a pinnacle to it, which is why a forthcoming Ashes tour and two World Cups in quick succession, in 2026 and ’29, is so important and gives the players something to aspire to.
The ability to take a group abroad, on a human level, is one of the most exciting things that you can do.
We were lucky enough to take an England team to Australia in 2019 and they remain some of my fondest memories – and we had Jodie Boyd-Ward playing and multiple members of female staff.
Betfred Wheelchair Super League is going to brilliant this year with Sheffield and Edinburgh coming in. There might be some more blow out scores early on but having a more varied competition will ultimately be a good thing.
Eagle Chris Haines coming from the Championship and making his England debut last autumn against Spain was an amazing story that we probably didn’t celebrate enough publicly.
Our invitational festival, which is the first event of the 2025 programme, is going to be staged at the University of Nottingham this weekend because we want a central venue. And we have increasing support from that sector because they have sports wheelchairs, halls and willing participants.
We’ll have several talent transfer athletes, players who are not yet members of a wheelchair rugby league club but are in wheelchair basketball, athletics, union etc and want to come along and try – we are going to look everywhere and consider everyone.
Nothing would give me greater pleasure than if the England player of the match winning the 2029 World Cup final is someone who isn’t even involved in the sport at the moment.
Image: Allan McKenzie/SWpix
