‘I could not hear a single thing – I did not even realise I had scored a try’
hjodie Ounsley is the first deaf female to play rugby for a senior England side – and now has a growing legion of Tiktok fans
Jodie Ounsley’s try for Sale against Worcester last month looked nothing out of the ordinary, but in fact it was extraordinary in every sense. Popping up at the right moment for an offload, she zoomed over the whitewash, sparking celebrations from her teammates. But for Ounsley, who is profoundly deaf, the entire episode was one of pure confusion.
“My cochlear implant isn’t waterproof, so rain and sweat can be a nightmare,” says the full-back, who wears a scrum cap to protect the hearing device from damage. “My hair was all sweaty because it was quite a hot day and it completely shut off. I couldn’t hear a single thing. I didn’t even realise I had scored because I couldn’t hear the whistle.”
In many ways, the try, which has been viewed nearly 300,000 times on Ounsley’s Tiktok page, is a microcosm of her life. Born completely deaf, she has defied the odds to succeed in a team sport where communication is key, becoming the first deaf female rugby player to play for a senior England side when she was awarded a professional sevens contract two years ago.
Last month she made her debut for Great
Britain in the
World Rugby Sevens
Series in Canada, where they were crowned Fast Four champions.
Given her raw athleticism from a young age, Ounsley was always destined to excel at a sport that requires contact and speed. She represented Great Britain in sprinting at the Deaflympics as a 16-year-old and was crowned a British jiu-jitsu champion in 2018, the latter achievement being a product of years of sparring with her father, Phil, a mixed martial arts fanatic.
For rugby, she relies on hand signals to understand the calls on the pitch, along with lip-reading, a skill she was forced to master as a child. “In training, if there’s a photo taken of me, I always have quite a serious, fuming face – it comes across like I’ve got a bit of a resting b---- face,” laughs Ounsley, “but I’m just concentrating so hard to lip-read.”
Such jokes are an example of how Ounsley, who hails from Wakefield in West Yorkshire, has used rugby to tackle stereotypes around deafness. She admits to being a shy girl when first rocking up to her local club, Sandal Girls RFC, after badgering her parents for weeks to take her to a training session, but quickly came out of her shell.
“I soon realised I needed to be more open to play rugby,” she says. “Even if it was just a little joke to the person next to me, like, ‘By the way, I’m deaf, I’m not ignoring you’. That built my confidence.”
With a following of nearly 50,000 on Tiktok, the 20-year-old has become something of a social media sensation thanks to her insightful and comical clips. In one of them, she describes what her world would be like without her implant.
“When you press the mute button on your TV, it’s like that,” says Ounsley, who never learnt sign language. “A cochlear implant is not like a cure or normal hearing – I still very much struggle – it just allows me to hear certain sounds and hear the best I can.”
Ounsley is regularly inundated with questions from parents of deaf children, in an era where perceptions around deafness are being positively challenged. Viewers have embraced Rose Ayling-ellis, the first fully deaf contestant on this year’s Strictly Come Dancing, but when Ben Cohen, the former England wing, appeared on the show in 2013, he was reportedly told to keep his hearing loss and tinnitus private.
“To see her go on Strictly is so cool, the fact they are giving those opportunities to deaf people is really good to see. It’s nice that times are changing,” Ounsley says.
Despite having her England sevens contract cut after the pandemic hit, before injury ruled her out of being picked for the Tokyo Olympics, Ounsley remains optimistic about selection for the Paris Games in 2024.
“My ultimate dream has been to compete at the Olympics, even before rugby I had that dream,” she says. Given how much she has achieved in her short career as a deaf rugby player, you wouldn’t bet against it.