蜜芽传媒

Rugby often sounds like this (commentary audio). But imagine if it sounded more like this (audio of field). Or even like this (audio silence). Welcome to the world of Devon Deaf Rugby. Watching the team play, you see signing throughout. BSL signing. Rugby moves. You hear a bit too, but not all of the players do.
My name's Andrew Alderman, current fly-half for the Devon Deaf Rugby Team. The Devon Deaf Team was created in the off-season of last year. The aim is to bring a local community of deaf people to play rugby and hopefully start a trend up and down the country to get more deaf county teams.
Tell me about the players.
So we've got a good mix of players all up and down the levels. We've got a few national players that have, since we've started Devon Deaf, they've been called up to the England Deaf team. We've got some experience with the Welsh Deaf and Welsh Sevens. So we've got a good bunch of experienced deaf players and some unexperienced deaf players, which is what we're aiming to bring in.
And how does deaf rugby work?
It's less vocal and more hand gestures, more signalling, and you've got to be visual with your head on a swivel looking around all the time. I grew up in the deaf world so I understand it more than maybe someone who's just turned deaf or became hard of hearing. We've had some hearing players play for us and they have said how difficult it is to not be able to talk to people, not be able to communicate that way as opposed to how we're doing it with gestures. And I kind of made the point of imagine how hard it is for an 18-minute game in rugby, imagine how hard it is for life. We have some hard of hearing players that are qualified enough, but they're quite new to the deaf world. So it's mixing the two of them together - someone who's hard of hearing and someone who's deaf, makes them appreciate their hard of hearing-ness. So they can actually start learning to sign and be a part of a culture together.
What does it mean for players to be able to play in this team?
Oh, it's massive. Quite a lot of deaf people live only within their deaf community. So people who live in, say, Plymouth, will only associate with deaf people maybe in Plymouth. Whereas you've got this team, we've got people from all around the county, Newton Abbot, Exeter, Oakhampton, Plymouth, and I think there's a couple from Cornwall as well. So it's really bringing the whole county together and we've been playing at a different home ground so a lot of people are travelling and come to see.
Matt is the team's captain.
I'm supporting Luke here with his communication so I'll just be speaking back to what he signs. Yeah and hopefully we can get a clear picture.
So this is Luke Mannon.
Tell me about this team and why you're playing for it.
It's quite new for me. You know learning different things, new skills, like playing, tackling, passing, all different things.
What do you think of it so far?
It's really important to me, the deaf community coming together. We're really lucky because we have two players that can interpret and sign and make it easy for the deaf people to feel included. And how are you doing as a team? I feel the team's lots better. I've improved personally myself and the team started to prove themselves and our confidence are getting more and more. My mental health is much better because I'm focused on things, playing rugby, better than just doing other sports, just staying at home, doing nothing.
So it's helped your mental health, yes?
Yeah, so it's helped this mental health.
And physical health too, I guess?
Physical health, better because you're running. Here, I'm working out, going to the gym and stuff now. So my confidence has really improved. And I've joined a hearing team. Help me with skills.
Brilliant.
To have the opportunity to play at a mix of levels and for your county is really important, isn't it?
Oh, yeah, it's absolutely massive. And it's a great little boost for everyone, to be honest. Like, I've known there's a couple of deaf football teams, but I don't know how big they go. So we're hoping with this team, we're going to really push on. And we want to ideally get nationally and be recognised up and down the country. And we want to start a trend. We want other counties to be thinking, well, they started that, why can't we do that too?