From Padawan To Master

Sebastien Bechara, England

We teamed up with Rugby League World Cup 2021 for a special series. From Jamaica, Brazil and Lebanon, to England, New Zealand and the Cook Islands, our series documents the personal journeys of players to the Rugby League World Cup 2021 – across the Men’s, Women’s, and Wheelchair tournaments.

Sebastien Bechara, the England and Catalan Dragons Wheelchair star, describes the sacrifices required to reach the top of his sport and the mentality it takes to keep winning at the elite level.

Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your current rugby life?

My name is Sebastien Bechara, I am 28 years old, and an Englishman living in France since the age of nine. When I was 18 years old, I had a motorbike accident, causing the amputation of my right leg, setting me on the path to becoming one of the leading wheelchair rugby league players today. I currently play for Catalan Dragons in France, and I play in England with Halifax Panthers during my off season. I play for England at all international events.

What has been your rugby journey up until now? 

After my accident, I was in a rehab centre for quite a while. When it was safe enough for my stump, I started playing wheelchair basketball at the centre, with and against other patients, staff, and interns. I absolutely loved being able to play sport again, as I was always one to play plenty of different sports. Before the accident I did gymnastics, years of competitive swimming, years of tennis, and rugby union!

One day I met the French wheelchair rugby league captain, who was also captain for the Catalan Dragons. He invited me to come and give it a try having seen me play wheelchair basketball. I was definitely a bit too aggressive to continue playing basketball, and in need of a contact sport!

I never looked back. There were many things I loved about joining this team. First, being able to feel like I had no disability. Once you sit down in a sports wheelchair, and everyone there is too, you feel like your disabilities disappear. Any weakness you feel or doubts you have when you are in the “real world” are gone, just like that.

My personal experience was not being totally understood by my pre-accident friends. I sometimes feared having to walk from one place to another with them or being in class with them and feeling the need to take my prosthetic leg off because it was hurting too much, or being distracted because of nerve pain, or walking around town and having so many people stare at you. The real world can quickly become a very hard adventure for someone that has only just become “disabled” and has not grown up learning what it is like to have all these side effects.

Secondly, I also loved being at wheelchair rugby league training because I was surrounded either by people like me, people that understood me, or that did not care that I had a leg missing. That was a great feeling. You suddenly feel “normal” and just fit in without being the different one.

It also allowed many problems and questions I had to be answered. A friend in the team had been amputated for over 25 years. He had already experienced everything I was going through, and always had the answer to my problems. It was also a great source of information and help to be at training with these people.

At Catalan Dragons, I loved being there, I loved playing rugby, I loved the people I was doing it with and the team spirit. I had always been a competitive person, and this was definitely stimulating that part of me. Back then I did not know all the sacrifices I would make for this sport, but every single one has been worth it for this amazing journey.

I was still a student when I started, in my second year of a business degree. The year I started, a few of my teammates were part of the French national team and played in the 2013 Rugby League World Cup. I watched them shine and become world champions. I cannot tell you how proud I was of them and how much it motivated me to become a better player and be a part of the next World Cup in 2017.

This is when the sacrifices started. I started training HARD, turning down my student events, not drinking alcohol at parties, having a perfect diet and spending money on good food rather than pasta and ketchup like my other student friends. I now had something I was fighting for, being able to one day represent my country and play at the highest level.

I quickly became a much better player, and after having won the French championship with the Catalan Dragons, we qualified to play in the European Cup finals against the best English team at the time, Leyland Warriors, and the game was being held in England. This was it; my chance to shine and show my worth to the English coaches, who at this time had probably never even heard of me yet.

I got to that game the fittest I had ever been, motivation levels at an all-time high, and absolutely killed it. I was invited to come back to England the following weekend for an England pre-selection camp, and eventually made the final squad who would go and win the European Championship, beating Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and finally, World Champions France.

At the time, the sport was still very amateur, although we were training extremely hard. This meant that there was no money. Every trip, every camp, every flight, drive, hotel, everything I had to pay for myself. And it all added up very quickly, and I was spending an absolute fortune on my dream to play for England.

During my studies I was already working professionally as a trumpet player. Work and concerts were always on weekends. So not only was I spending all this money coming to England, but I was also missing work every time I came over, letting down my orchestra and losing all the money I was supposed to be earning. Every camp with England came at a cost.

What did you try to show with the photos? Was there any wider meaning with any of the photos?

I mainly took photos of my teammates during training and events with the Catalan Dragons and England. This included the French Championship Finals (that we won), the Challenge Cup Festival, Challenge Cup Finals, training camps, and a France vs England game.

There was also a game I played for Halifax, where an opponent had his chair snapped in multiple different pieces at the end of the game. These are wheelchairs that are usually made to measure and can cost up to 10,000 Euros each.

I tried to show what the life of a wheelchair rugby league player looks like. We travel with a sports wheelchair, spare wheels in case they break, toolkits to repair the chairs, and spare parts. Travelling can quickly become a nightmare for the team and for the travel company too!

The emotions an athlete can go through during games are incredible - winning, losing, the love and brotherhood, the connections made in the sport with teammates and opponents. The support we can get from the people most important in our lives is unreal.

The French Championship Finals was an important game for Catalan Dragons. We have been dominating the championship for a while, and we always get a lot of people wanting to see that change, to take us down from the top.

This was the first championship after Covid hit and was the first time we were allowed to restart competition. It took a little while longer for us as we play inside. We won and proved our dominance once again!

Are there any good stories connected with one (or more) of the people you photographed?

Gilles Clausells is one of the most amazing guys I have ever met. He is 59 right now, French captain, and still playing and performing at the highest level. Not only is he one of my best friends, but also my mentor. I first met Gilles at Catalan Dragons training and the person with the solution to every problem I have ever had with my stump or prosthetic. He was also one of the players that taught me the most about wheelchair rugby league and was voted best player in the world in 2017.

We also spent a full month together in a rehab clinic to create a new prosthetic leg together. We spent all day every day together for a month and it really created a close bond between us. We have won many events together, but we also compete against each other for France and England.

He always calls me “padawan”, a name I am quite proud of, because he had always been my Jedi Master in a way. But in the same way that Anakin eventually did, I had to follow my own path and we became enemies at the World Cup Final (with all the love and respect we have for each other).

The fight that day was tremendous. We dominated the game but in the 77th minute they scored the try that won them the World Cup. It was scored by Gilles's nephew, Nicolas, another great friend who plays with me at Catalan Dragons. They are still my teammates today but are still also my enemies when we clash internationally.

Now I have my own padawan, Jeremy Bourson, who is quickly becoming a star within the French team and one of their major hopes of winning the upcoming World Cup. I taught him everything, made sure he became an amazing player, and now I have created a monster that I must play against. I have made my life so much harder.

What does rugby league and playing for your country mean to you?

Every time I play wheelchair rugby, I feel happy, I feel motivated, I feel invincible. Everything about it is just brilliant. The inclusivity, the diversity, the power, the effort needed, the violence, the stories, the mind games.

I am disabled, I play in a wheelchair in a game that I love. My youngest brother Oliver is able bodied, no disability affects him, but he chose to play wheelchair rugby league too with me. Not only because the sport allows that, allowing literally anyone to play together - men, women, boys, girls, disabled, non-disabled, heavily disabled, lightly disabled, old, older, young, younger, transgender, you name it, anyone can play. But also because he loved the sport itself. He chose to start playing with me and played some competitive games with me at Catalan Dragons before having to move on because of his studies.

I consider wheelchair rugby league as a sport in itself, and not as the “disabled” version of rugby league. I consider the wheelchair a simple tool needed to play the sport, as a racquet is used for tennis or a bike for cycling.

Playing for my country provides great joy to me. It was a goal I had set for myself, something I achieved, something that proves that the efforts and sacrifices were worth it, something that proves that I reached the pinnacle of my sport, that provides me with great pride. It also puts me in a position where I can influence the growth of the sport and can be a role model for people playing the sport, or for people who have had accidents. We show people that even with a disability your life can be great.

Because I moved to France when I was 9, I was always proud of being English, and I had a bit of a war with my French friends, with all of them calling me “Rosbif”. Then when I went to England everyone called me a “French Frog”. When representing England there is no doubt in anyone’s mind of what I am.

But the cliché answer is also the truest of them all, playing for England provides pride like no other. Singing the national anthem before a World Cup Final and playing for your country is something I  wish everyone could experience. The first game I played for England after the Covid break was in June 2021 against Wales. I remember singing the anthem, and afterwards just smiling, laughing, nearly crying, just saying to myself “I love this, I missed this so much, I LOVE this”.

What ambitions do you have for the future?

My first ambition in wheelchair rugby league is obviously winning the World Cup. I got so close to winning the World Cup Final in 2017, playing 80 minutes in the fiercest rugby battle I have ever played in my life. That game just seemed to be on another level. You could tell everyone was ready to give more than their body actually could. But we lost in the last three minutes of the game. I have gone through that game again and again, promising myself that the next time I would do everything and anything it takes to not feel the pain and suffering that I felt that day, and bring that trophy home.

Longer term I would love to participate in making wheelchair rugby league a professional sport. Seeing it grow makes me so happy. I want to help it be seen and appreciated, allowing athletes to actually make a living from doing what they love, and growing it worldwide.

I am also a professional musician, playing the trumpet from a very young age. Lately, one of my bands has been growing massively. I would love for this to grow more and play festivals, massive gigs, and get the reward of years and years of trumpet practice. It is a very similar story to the rugby league path at the end of the day. Both trumpet and rugby allow me to live a nice life, and I will keep following my dreams.

What do you think the future looks like for rugby league after the RLWC? Why might the future be exciting? What would you like to change? 

The future for wheelchair rugby league looks absolutely incredible. We want to use the Rugby League World Cup as a springboard to get new teams to open across the country, gather new players, create new competitions, and increase media coverage. I have heard about teams starting in Brazil and in Morocco, and I am looking forward to USA participating in their first ever World Cup, and I'm sure that following it the sport will start to grow massively over there too. It already fills me with joy when I watch Instagram posts of the USA team training.

I know there are so many people in the world who would love this sport and could be incredible players, yet they just have not heard of it, or do not have the opportunities or facilities to play it.

There are many things I would like to change. We need to improve the quality of halls for teams to play in. I would also like to see bigger audiences at regular season domestic games, not just at the big events.

It has always been hard for teams to start because you needed a lot of costly sports wheelchairs. But Rugby League World Cup offered brand new chairs to new teams trying to start up, giving lots of opportunities to anyone willing to start a team in the country. It would be great if there could be a worldwide campaign like this.

What are the biggest changes happening at the moment in Wheelchair rugby league?

The biggest change happening at the moment is definitely the recognition we are getting. Being on TV was a massive step for us, having proper cameras, commentators, slo-mo replays, all helping us become a sport that people “know about”.

Sometimes it is hard to believe how professional our sport has actually become. Most of our games used to be filmed on someone's phone. Today we are live on national TV, with media groups following us and filming us everywhere we go. But it is still not professional and still far from it. But people are starting to realize how amazing this sport is, how good it is to play, to watch, to broadcast, and how incredible some of the stories of people involved are.

I am sure 80% of the country would not know wheelchair rugby league exists, whereas 80% of the country probably know “wheelchair rugby” exists - the paralympic sport played with a round ball, with “touch downs” and forward passes. It used to be called murderball and changed its name to wheelchair rugby for some reason, but it shares absolutely no rules with rugby.

I always have to explain to people that we play actual rugby, with a rugby ball, backward passing, indoor rugby posts, with kicking involved and real BIG HITS. I am hoping this World Cup will have the same effect for us that London 2012 had for murderball or “wheelchair rugby”.

What are the opportunities for Wheelchair players in England and France?

Wheelchair rugby league players in England and France have the opportunity to play the best sport that exists on this planet! The national teams in England, Wales, France, Scotland, and Ireland have some great experiences travelling around the world. With England we went on an Ashes tour around Australia, Wales are leaving on a tour to Brazil soon. The sport is growing exponentially.

Rugby league is also working hard for equality. They announced equal participation fees during the World Cup for Men, Women, and Wheelchair players, so in the near future there is clearly an opportunity for our sport to be professional.

What would you say to someone to convince them to participate in Wheelchair rugby league?

Playing wheelchair rugby league is something very special. It is such a fun game that can be played by literally anyone. There is always a solution to play this sport at whatever level.

I know some people get scared after watching a game. What I can say is that we very rarely get hurt, the wheelchairs take all the impact, it is like playing rugby but without getting any hits (at least not until you get to the highest level).

Wheelchair rugby league opens doors to physical activity, meeting amazing people, feeling competitive, and having plenty of opportunities for the future.