With no scrums, tackles, or kicking, how does this game help players with health problems find camaraderie and joy?
A pair of black and neon green straps supported Gwyn Reynolds’s knees as he faked a pass to the left and sidestepped the defender. With an open field ahead, he clutched the rugby ball in his right hand, leaned forward and crossed the try line.
A smile flashed across Gwyn’s face as his teammates, the opposition players and the coach standing on the sidelines cheered. The 62-year-old had scored his first try of the day.
“I never had any rugby skills, even when I was young,” says Gwyn with a smile. “If anything, I have gotten worse. The knee is the main problem.”
Every Saturday morning, Gwyn arrives at Cwmbran Stadium to train and play Walking Rugby with the Torfaen Swifts, a club established in 2018. The hour-long training session helps him connect with the game he has loved since boyhood and quit playing in his twenties. As he rediscovers the sport, old age and damaged knees sometimes frustrate him, but competitiveness has not left the man.
“I can’t do what I used to do. I can’t turn quickly. If I do get the ball at a pace, I can’t stop. It takes a while to slow down. I can’t put so much pressure on the knee. It is annoying,” he says.
Gwen’s teammate, 64-year-old Owen Davies, is diabetic and has prostate cancer and a loop recorder in his chest to monitor his heart rhythm. Walking Rugby motivates him to step out of the house and defy his ailments.
“You are not worried or concerned when you are playing the sport,” says Owen, who joined the team in November last year. “I have got an abnormal heart rhythm. So, I asked my cardiologist if I could play walking rugby, and he said, ‘Yeah, that would be really good’. So, I came here just to defy the fact that I am getting older, and I have got all these ailments.”
Like Gwen and Owen, many other players in Torfaen Swifts have heart monitors, pacemakers, hip problems, diabetes and high blood pressure. The team is open to people of all ages and genders, but most are in their sixties. Some have difficulty walking, but at least a couple of them are fast enough to dodge multiple defenders.
“There is lenience to make sure everyone’s able to play at their level,” says the team’s coach Gareth Baldwin. “For most of the players here, it brings back a little bit of youth. And don’t go by their age, they still have that fire alive. They often get sent off for over-vigorous tackling and using foul and abusive language against the ref.”
Walking rugby has surged in popularity in Wales in the past few years, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. By one estimate, there are at least 100 Welsh Walking Rugby clubs and many more in England and Scotland.
The clubs often gather at Walking Rugby festivals organised across the UK and participate in non-competitive games. No one keeps scores, and the teams are awarded based on fair play and sporting spirit.
“We were one of the first walking rugby clubs in Wales, but it’s come on massive now,” Gareth, 65, says. “Most rugby clubs have now got a walking team. We [Torfaen Swifts] have our feelers in other clubs as well. We have helped with the start of a few other clubs, too.
“Anyone can join our club. Just show up Saturday morning at the Cwmbran Stadium, and you are in.”
The rules of the game are a slight variation of the rugby union. Each team fields a squad of ten with seven players allowed on the pitch. There are no tackles, scrummages, rucks, mauls or kicking. The aim is to score tries by crossing the opposition’s try line.
Gareth was involved in the framing of these laws. He says English rules differ slightly as they allow scrummages, but Wales never went on that route because it would not have been in the players’ interest.
“You can’t put a 70-year-old down there. They would never get up,” he says.
Zoey Victoria, 43, the only woman player in Torfaen Swifts, is known among her teammates for her fierce pushes and constant efforts to gain competitive advantage. She had never played rugby before joining the team in 2021.
“It was difficult at first. All the sports I have played before rugby have all very much been about getting in front of the ball. But rugby is entirely different because you must be behind the ball,” Zoey says. “I remember someone on my team who was very vocal, and he was telling me where I needed to go. I told him, ‘Mate, at this moment, all my mental ability is going into being behind the ball and not getting caught off-side’. But then, I understood the game and caught on.”
Gwyn Williams, 63, one of the fastest and most agile players on the team, says Walking Rugby is a means for him to stay fit and be part of a good bunch of people.
“We have a great laugh with each other. We knock each other around a bit and make each other look silly when we can. As for whether I am the fastest on the team, that’s not for me to say,” he says with a wry smile.
But when does walking turn into running?
“That’s the debate in Walking Rugby. It’s all subjective,” says coach Gareth.