“You’re going to enjoy this,” Wayne Boardman, a long-serving member of England’s wheelchair side, tells me as I arrive at Calderdale College in Halifax. Boardman’s smile somewhat subtly implies it will be him and his teammates who will enjoy watching me try wheelchair rugby league for the first time, rather than the other way round. After all, they know what I’ve let myself in for.
The sport isn’t even 20 years old, having been devised in 2004 in France. It is arguably the most inclusive and diverse sport there is, pitting disabled and non-disabled, male and female, on the same teams. But the most striking aspect is its brutality and physicality, with the players regularly crashing into each other at full tilt.
