Meet England Sevens and Sale star Jodie Ounsley: 'I scored a try and could not even hear the whistle'

Jodie Ounsley’s try for Sale against Worcester last month looked nothing out of the ordinary, but it was extraordinary in every sense. Popping up at the right moment for an offload, the fullback 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 Ounsley, who wears a scrum cap when playing 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 impressive TikTok page - is a microcosm of her life. Born completely deaf, she has continually defied the odds to succeed in a team sport where communication and contact are 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 on the world sevens series in Canada, where the team were crowned Fast Four champions.

Given her raw athleticism from a young age, Ounsley was always destined to excel at a sport which requires contact and speed. She represented Great Britain in sprinting at the Deaflympics as a 16-year-old and crowned a British jiu jitsu champion in 2018, the former achievement being a product of years of sparring with her MMA-mad dad, Phil. For rugby, she relies on hand signals to understand the correct 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 lipread.”

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 reflects. “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 and over one million likes, 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 learned 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.”

In a testimony to her Tiktok popularity, Ounsley is regularly inundated with questions from parents of deaf children, in an era where perceptions around deaf stigma 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 winger, 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 getting that diversity and giving those opportunities to deaf people is really good to see - it’s nice that times are changing,” says Ounsley of Eastenders actor Ayling-Ellis.

Despite having her England sevens contract cut after the pandemic hit before injury ruled her out of selection for the Tokyo Olympics, Ounsley remains optimistic about selection for the Paris Games in three years’ time. “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 relatively short career as a deaf rugby player, you wouldn’t bet against it.