When your sport is sandwiched in between the Chemical Brothers and the Prodigy on the bill at one of the biggest arenas in the country, you know you’re doing something right. Wheelchair rugby league has thrust its way into the mainstream over the past year or so and never has that felt more apparent than here, on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Leeds.
As recently as two years ago, the sport’s biggest games were being played in local sports halls in front of nobody but after England’s victory at the Rugby League World Cup last year the sport has boomed. One week ago the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra topped the bill at Leeds Arena but now it was the turn of England’s wheelchair team in front of a crowd of several thousand fascinated spectators against a France side they defeated last November to become world champions and create a mainstream buzz.
