We’ve been delighted to partner with the IRFU to develop training for coaches who are supporting autistic players. To create our training, we talked to players, family members and coaches from across the country. In this podcast, Cat chats to James and Wendy Vahey, who are both players in Leinster. They chat about the benefits of ruby and the strengths that autistic people can bring to the game.
We’ve been delighted to partner with the IRFU to develop training for coaches who are supporting autistic players. To create our training, we talked to players, family members and coaches from across the country. In this podcast, Cat chats to James and Wendy Vahey, who are both players in Leinster. They chat about the benefits of ruby and the strengths that autistic people can bring to the game.
Welcome to the Middletown Podcast. I'm Kat Hughes, I'm a researcher at Middletown and I'm also autistic. In this episode I am giddy because I get to talk to some lovely people about a special interest. I'm talking all things rugby with Wendy and James Fahey. They're a mother and son and they're both players at a club in Leinster. James is autistic and has been playing since he was little. I wanted to find out what their experience was like. I started by asking what they love about rugby.
Speaker 2:Why I love rugby. Well, it's fun and it's a great form of exercise really, and it's one of the few things that actually get me out and about. I'm mainly an indoor tour guide now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I get that. I'm an indoor gal most of the time.
Speaker 1:That is very true. It gets them off as technology Isn't that right? It gets them off as YouTube.
Speaker 3:I think, yeah, I think we all need something to give us a push to get us off our technology now and again, don't we? I think we all need something to give us a push to get us off our technology now and again, don't we? I think we all need that.
Speaker 1:What else do you like about it? Do you like the camaraderie?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that, and just generally, just being able to actually move my body, just being able to be useful, I suppose.
Speaker 1:There's great inclusivity in his club and they're very accepting of all differing abilities differing, you know, anything goes. Anybody can play rugby and everybody is accepted within his club, but also in the sort of the wider accepted within his club but also in the sort of the wider fraternity. I love the. There's a huge amount of respect in rugby that you don't get in other sports and that's really important to me, and also the fact that James is and and his other um team players. They're, they're treated like players. They're not treated like people who you know need to be handled specially. Obviously you know their needs are addressed, but at the end of the day you're on the pitch, you're, you're a player and you play the game and you're treated as a player.
Speaker 3:That's what I love about rugby and how do you think you benefited or changed by being a rugby player?
Speaker 2:You mean how it benefited me? Yeah, so it helped with keeping my head clear and helped with finding some inspiration. I do a bit of story writing.
Speaker 2:Wow yeah, inspiration I do a bit of story writing, wow, yeah, so keeping it. So what I'm saying might be it. It helps sort of with keeping my train of thought clear and wake up your brain yeah, wake up my brain and also helps with actually figuring out things that I could use. And who knows, there's all the way I might bring up something that could be inspirational and that's something that would be bring to the table.
Speaker 3:That is fantastic, but that's a really interesting answer. I haven't heard that answer in terms of sort of using rugby to sort of physically kind of change how you think and fear your brain.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting yeah, yeah, the thing about people on the autistic spectrum anything that they sort of enjoy or like tends to sort of tends to sort of create inspiration or even sort of create a sense of sort of a train of thought that not only acts like a proper train of thought but also can lead back to something that they enjoy, something that they enjoy, something that they might want to have a job in.
Speaker 3:That's it. Absolutely, yeah, definitely. And how do you feel, from your perspective, that James has benefited from being a rugby player?
Speaker 1:So he's been playing rugby, oh God, since he was probably about seven or eight I'd say he's 22. Now we're in our second club. He outgrew the first club and when he first started going it was like difficult to get him out the door. He wasn't that interested because he just didn't. He wasn't, you know, hugely, he was not very motivated.
Speaker 2:At that time I was a bit older than most of the other kids.
Speaker 1:That's why we moved you to where you are now so he's moved the club that he's in. Now he's with a much broader age bracket but he's really benefited because he's been brought in, just accepted into the team's being brought in, just, you know, accepted into the team. Everybody is brought in.
Speaker 1:He's been taught how to be a team player, he's been taught how to you know sort of share share the love share the love share the love and you know, it's taught him a lot, of, a lot of skills like that to sort of see when other people um, james is really good at what I'm about to say.
Speaker 1:There's another fella that actually was in the first club with us and has come to the second club and they've both learned to recognize when other people aren't as able as they are. But they need their go with the ball and they recognize that. Ok, if I pass to this person who isn't as able, we're not going to win the point, but they get a go, they get a go, and they both, james, and there's a couple of other ones of them that are really, you know, sharing it like that, which is so important, and I think that's a huge benefit. It's really taught them empathy and compassion for others who, even though these guys are on the spectrum and have various needs. It's taught them to realize the needs of others and work with them as well.
Speaker 3:And do you think that being autistic brings specific benefits to rugby? Are there things that autistic people can bring?
Speaker 2:Benefits, benefits. Well, we can. For me, I can often think outside the box when I'm playing rugby, although there are a few growl back at times, because if the team tells me to go forward, I might be going. It's just that my footwork sometimes doesn't always work work out, but there are a lot of times where it does. I think of that who is going to go for the ball the most, or who is the most unlikely to go for it? Because that person is usually the most dangerous one in the game but it's also um for you.
Speaker 1:I think the um playing rugby. It's very accepting because um people with autism, it might take them a little bit longer to um learn how to play. Like we're constantly saying james, run forward, run forward, and he likes to run sideways Again, backdoor. Yeah yeah, trying to run sideways and go around everybody. But everybody in the club is accepting. They're very accepting and it's all fun.
Speaker 2:It's all great fun, Kind of like how everyone argues in a machine that helps build each other up.
Speaker 3:That's great.
Speaker 1:But we also. There are a couple of players that would be fixated on one particular thing. We have one guy who loves to kick. All he wants to do is kick the ball.
Speaker 1:He is a kicker, he is a number 10 and he just loves to kick the ball, go for goal, and it's really good for him to learn. Hang on a sec to learn that, okay, at the end of the game we'll let you kick, but for now you've got to share the ball and you've got to. You know you must pass, because you can't score a try if you haven't passed three times, and so learning a lot of that is it's a great skill to learn yeah through the fun of rugby yeah that's billy, yeah, yeah that is billy, and yeah, and the thing is that there's not a reason why we have to keep telling him not to kick the ball.
Speaker 2:When he gets too excited, he might not be looking at where he's going to be aiming the ball, remember.
Speaker 1:Well, he's a really good kicker, but sometimes people are in the way of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:Easily done. What are some of the skills that James brings to rugby?
Speaker 1:James is very caring and he's very empathetic. He really is good at recognising when people need minding and including and being brought along. Now, sometimes it's him that needs the minding, but more often than not he's the one doing the looking after and, you know, making sure that everybody on the team is included, like we have some who would be much more severely hindered. Thank you, that's a really good word, and he will make sure to include them. Make sure that you know they're having a good time as well, because sometimes they need a lot more sort of motivation and bringing along. And I know that, like if, if I'm minding one of them, there's one, there's one lad who would be quite, quite far along the autistic spectrum and he does need sort of one-to-one minding and being brought along going. Now put your hands out and catch the ball and look it's coming this direction and keep an eye. I know I can leave James to look after him if I need to look after somebody else.
Speaker 3:So you know he's great like that and it's been really good for him as well to learn, to learn all of that and did you have you found at any stage that you were anxious at all about playing any or any aspect of it, and how have you kind of managed that anxiety as you've been playing?
Speaker 2:The thing with rugby itself doesn't give me anxiety. The anxiety actually comes from my personal life outside of rugby, how it just brings it, how it just brings it, how it is will be going, how it will follow me into something like rugby. But, funny enough, rugby is one of the things I use to actually de-stress from anxiety. It's I don't. I try not to sort of let any anxiety come from rugby or come from some other source and just lead into rugby, because if that happens then then the rugby itself becomes sort of hard to do and there have been times where I felt like I don't really belong in the group because of that anxiety. So it's bit of a. So basically what I use rugby to help de-stress myself. But if I'm too stressed beforehand, it's sort of getting Rugby will get mixed in by oxygen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but if you're too stressed sometimes, if he arrives up and we all do it we all get out of bed the wrong side the odd time and sometimes he can arrive up very wound up, very stressed out and we can have a bit of a meltdown on the pitch. If that happens happens rightly so. Our players are not treated any different to other players who might have a meltdown. It's explained. You can't do that on the pitch. They're given a little bit of a timeout, they're calmed down. This includes him. Then he comes back in and gets stuck in again. Um, you know, we teach, we teach all of the kids respect, which is really important.
Speaker 1:Um, and they're not kids, sorry, they're adults well we teach the players which is I've used the word clingers, will I?
Speaker 2:because so, um, you know, we teach them respect and we have had not just james but others who who have come and had a bit of a meltdown, and you know, we talk them through it, we explain it and and not just because they're not just people who are on the spectrum, but other people like what's her name, the girl that sort of have that thing where she might have something with a tag and need to lie on a blanket.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah. And we have one girl who has epilepsy, so she quite regularly has seizures, but we know what to do with her. She goes to the side, she's on a blanket and we look after her and you know everybody minds her.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Looks after her and you know, everybody minds her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Looks after her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it is. It is a great source of stress relief for him. As he says, like the, if he's anxious, that will be outside of rugby. Other things might be winding him up and rugby is his way of de-stressing.
Speaker 3:That's wonderful. What a fantastic thing to have. That's brilliant, and there's an awful lot of communication in rugby. So it's, you know, talking to the referee, talking to your teammates, communicating with your coach. Do you enjoy that aspect of it and is there any sort of particular aspect, either on or on the pitch or after games or before games, that you, you really like?
Speaker 2:Pretty good because, it builds up teamwork and it's basically like it's similar to how the coaches are on the pitch who train with us. You know, not just on the sidelines how we feel like that they are on the pitch as well. Who's been helping us? Funny enough, my mom is kind of a coach on the on the team really yeah, yeah, kind of a coach.
Speaker 1:Not really a coach, but I end up on the pitch anyway yeah, by. Yeah, it's kind of a bit divided, that kind of a coach yeah, yeah, it's um, it's very it's it's my favorite hour of the week um his uh special needs rugby because it's very inclusive. It's very, um very much a team sport. Our head coach, mr dave hicks, is hilarious.
Speaker 2:He has them all cracking up laughing and on top of that it's the rugby group of my mum, because Keeps me fit and healthy.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, keeps you fit and healthy too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, true, yeah brilliant.
Speaker 3:Brilliant and are there. Can you think of three changes that you'd make to make rugby more inclusive?
Speaker 2:The first change I would make is if there wasn't something like an official mascot or some sort of.
Speaker 2:Was in something like an official mascot or some sort of or some or something like an album like the iris album, to sort of get people motivated beforehand. That would be the first thing. The second thing would be if there were more girls that joined, because how they're seeing as there are more guys than girls over there, it's very it normally doesn't feel one-sided, but it feels like some players are sort of going a bit wild without realizing how, and sort of forgetting how, some people are on the spectrum and we know that would help get out more girls sort of join in and get interested in the sport. The first part would have to be, if we have more matches against clubs, that that also have teams that are on the spectrum and teams that are not on the spectrum, to show that both sides are equal, how we don't need someone to be holding our hand the whole way through, how we can carry on, we can push past this and even if we fall down we'll just get back up, just like that Example of the London Irish team.
Speaker 1:So every year London Irish, our club, has a partnership with the London Irish team over in the UK and our I think it's the under-14s teams team mainstream players now go over there and then they come over to us and every year when they come over to us the coaches play against the Eagles, the special needs team, and they say it is the best fun they ever have. They look forward to it year on year. So it's like mainstream coaches of under 14s team playing with the special needs team and it just brings so much joy to everybody, to our visitors, to the coaches. It's just such fun and that's what it's all about. That's what rugby for you know, people with differing needs or differing abilities is all about just having such fun like that. And it's very respectful. Like they just act, the maggot, the coaches. They fall all over the place and go, oh no, and they tumble on the floor and we think it's hilarious and everybody has great fun yeah great fun, great fun.
Speaker 1:So that's, I think, what James is talking about More matches against clubs with mainstream players, just to introduce the fact that rugby is for all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, besides, having autism isn't a weakness, it's a great strength. And besides, if we have more matches against mainstream players, who knows, maybe more teams with people with autism might pop up, or even a team that has both players that do and don't have some sort of better need Like a mixed ability team.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a brilliant idea, as.
Speaker 2:Campbell Brandon says Different, not less Different not less.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much, absolutely. And then my very last question for you, james, is what do you wish people understood about autism? I think you've already said some fantastic things about autism.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are many artists that have autism and they are not looked at people as something like people who are weird or free. They are treated as famous or historical people, treated as famous or historical people. I want our people to be important to them, no matter how small or how big they are on the spectrum, to be like they are not being put down by society.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's brilliant. Could not have said it better. That's absolutely perfect. Thank you so much for that. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. If you want to know more about Middletown, you can find us on twitter at autism center, or on facebook or instagram at middletown center for autism.