Maidstone's Lee Robshaw earns first England Visually Impaired Rugby call up ahead of home tournement

The hosts will take on Japan, Ireland and Wales in 20-minute matches for the Alex Bassan Cup at Sutton & Epsom Rugby Club on Saturday, November 23.

Transcript

00:00Tell me what it's like, the whole experience of being able to represent England.

00:03Yeah, it's good. It's hard work, a lot of travelling around and that, going to Stockport and to London.

00:11It's every other week going to and from, hard training with everybody.

00:20Visually impaired, I started in 2018 because I stopped playing mainstream football because I broke my ankle.

00:31And because of my vision, I realised that I needed to play visually impaired sport.

00:40So I started and went from there really.

00:44Of course, I know that sport's always been a big part of your life. As you said, you played lots of football.

00:48And before rugby, you were actually playing a lot of cricket as well.

00:51So, let's talk a bit about your condition then, if that's okay.

00:55You've got aniridia, is that the correct pronunciation?

00:59So it's the absence of the iris.

01:01Can you just explain to us, just so that we're aware, how that does affect your vision day-to-day?

01:05Because it was something you were born with.

01:07Yeah, I was born with it. It affects light.

01:11I had it from when I was born. It's the colour part of your eye.

01:18And 10 years ago, I had an operation on my right eye to have an artificial iris to try and correct my vision and make it better.

01:29But it was unsuccessful. It was so I lost my sight completely in my right eye.

01:36And yeah, it's been hard, but I just had to adapt and I've never let anything get to me.

01:43I just get on with it and that's where I am now.

01:47Absolutely. And of course, turning to sport as well and how much it's given you over the years.

01:51What is it about competitive sports like rugby and playing visually impaired rugby that gives so much back to you?

01:58Well, rugby, everyone understands each other because everyone has the same condition playing.

02:10So you have the same mentality and understanding of each other and visually impaired rugby is fast, it's disciplined and it's hard.

02:28And how does it change compared to perhaps the rugby that we're used to seeing on our TVs regularly?

02:35And what's the kind of difference in terms of the rules?

02:37So it's sevens format and it's touch rugby.

02:45So when you go for a tackle, you touch someone with one hand and the ball has a bell in it so people can hear and the referee is vocal.

02:56So he says that there's a tackle and then you have to go back five metres.

03:02But apart from that, it's all the same as normal rugby apart from it's not a contact sport.

03:08Fantastic. And of course, you'll be playing with people from around the world as well.

03:11As I said before, not the first time. So how are you feeling about this tournament?

03:14You've got training this weekend, but it's the following weekends when you'll actually be going.

03:18Yeah, this weekend is going to be a hard training session because it's the last training session before the tournament.

03:24So it's going to be hard work and try and put in the last training session before the tournament

03:30because I know that Ireland are going to give us a good tournament and we haven't played Japan since 2018.

03:38So we don't know what Japan are going to be like, but I'm sure they're going to be good.

03:45So it's going to be an interesting tournament.

03:47Absolutely.

03:48We've been to New Zealand in 2017 and then we went to Japan in 2019 and Ireland last year and this year and Wales.

04:04Well, Lee, I wish you absolutely the best of luck.

04:06We've run out of time now, but we wish you the best of luck and we'll be following your story even more in the future.

04:10That is it from us. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye bye.