IT’S A DREAM FOR ME TO SEE THESE KIND OF STORIES UNFOLD
Says SCOTT BURNS, head coach of Wigan Warriors’ Physical Disability Rugby League team
At Wigan Warriors, the physical disability players tackle every game as if it’s their last. It is a mantra promoted by their head coach Scott Burns, whose pioneering work with the club was recognised with the Changing Lives Award at the UK Coaching Awards this month.
Burns, 43, knows exactly how it feels to face not playing again, having been forced out of grassroots participation seven years ago when he lost the sight in his right eye overnight due to a neurological trauma. that episode only strengthened his desire to help others fulfil their sporting goals.
‘One day it just went and I had to step back, stop doing quite a lot of things and adjust my life to living with monocular vision,’ says the father of four.
‘But once rugby league is in your blood it’s really hard to get away from and I knew I wanted to get back somehow, whether it be playing or coaching, so when I saw Warrington Wolves had set up England’s first physical disability team, I inquired if my hometown club were doing the same.’
they were not. At least, not until the then primary school PE teacher was summoned to discuss the possibility. ‘I had a vested interest because of my own disability and I knew I wanted to play again. then, I got invited back for a second meeting at which they asked me to be the head coach. to pull the shirt on is one thing but to lead the Warriors and this project was another.’
Burns is still having tests as medical experts attempt to get to the bottom of his loss of vision and whether ‘it will come back, or worst-case scenario, the other eye decides to do the same’.
But he doesn’t dwell on himself for long. Indeed, it was his empathetic qualities that encouraged Wigan to take him on full time as disability and inclusion officer soon after the inaugural six-team PDRL competition ended in 2019.
‘It helps me to understand my players. those that have visual impairments and some with learning disabilities don’t necessarily know when their last session will be. At some point some of them need to stop. And so my challenge is to make sure they get the most out of playing while they can. It’s motivating and terrifying at the same time,’ he continues.
‘Carl Wane has been with us from the very start and his sight has deteriorated to a point where we have begun setting up side projects for him — things related to social media, working with braille — so he can stay involved with us after what we all know is going to happen happens.
‘All he says is that he wants it to be with his boots on. He wants the scenario to be on the field, where he can put his hand up and say: “I’m done”. that will allow him to go out on his own terms, to some degree, and he will have played to the very last minute possible. When you see lads like that, it’s truly heartbreaking.’
But also rewarding for Burns, who was earmarked for the accolade for his realisation that ‘coaching and staying active isn’t just a hobby or pastime, it’s a way of life that deeply affects mental and physical well-being’.
Never has that been more poignant than in 2020, a year in which the pandemic has wreaked havoc with amateur sport. For example, Wigan’s learning disability team have been shut down since lockdown in March.
However, factoring in the importance of regular routine for those with autism, Burns and his team have maintained Zoom contact on Friday evenings, the night on which they would usually train.
Players have been encouraged to phone around the squad and share virtual brews to sustain camaraderie while the Wigan first team, 2020 Super League runnersup, have sent morale-boosting video messages, longing for a time when all the club’s sides can return to their Robin Park complex and its shared facilities.
the latter epitomises the onefor-all, all-for-one spirit that oozes from the sport in hours of need.
Chat to Burns and his enthusiasm for helping others overflows. In anticipation of Wigan launching a wheelchair team in 2021, he has spent hours practising in a chair himself to get a feel for the game — how to stop, how to turn, how to pass. ‘As a coach, I would never ask anybody to do anything that I have not done myself,’ he says.
When it comes to ex-servicemen with missing limbs or Ben Seward, the teenage captain with a congenital condition that meant he was born without a right arm, he studies the mechanics of their disabilities and copies them — such as shoving one hand up his t- shirt sleeve or behind his back — to get his own feel for it so group sessions can be tailored ‘ invisibly’ for individual needs.
For Seward, who is training to be a physical trainer specialising in those with disabilities at Wigan’s education academy, it is a particularly exciting time. He is one of those vying for a place in England’s nine-man team at next autumn’s first physical disability World Cup.
And if Seward and others do make it, one man will not be able to suppress his pride.
‘It’s a dream for me to see these kind of stories unfold,’ Burns says. ‘I love this job so much, I would sleep here if I could — just don’t tell the missus.’