Saints Wheelchair Rugby ended their Great Britain WR5s Premiership season with two wins in front of an ‘amazing’ home support at Arena Sports in Kettering.
For the first time on Sunday 13 July, the team were able to enjoy home county comforts and welcomed a large number of supporters who witnessed Saints secure a third-place finish in the final league standings.
Wins over Northeast Barbarians and Solent Sharks were mixed in with losses to Leicester Tigers and Help For Heroes, in the third and final round of the 2025 competition.
“The Club has been part of the WR5s league since 2018, being able to play at home for the first time was amazing,” said Saints Wheelchair Rugby Head Coach, Jamie Higgins. “We had a good number of supporters come along, including Saints Season Ticket Holders that saw on our social media and the Club’s website that we were playing at home.
“Over the past couple of years, we’ve had a few players come and go but we’ve still had a regular seven or eight who have been with the Club for a long period. But we’ve also got a large number of junior players who are coming in, so we’re still a developing team.
“But to still consistently stay within the top three is testament to the ability of the players and the talent within the team, which is a real positive."
“To still consistently stay within the top three is testament to the ability of the players and the talent within the team which is a real positive.”
Jamie Higgins, Saints Wheelchair Rugby Head Coach
“There have been some really close games, the league is really competitive, and we’ve come away from this season knowing what we need to work on to continue to develop our homegrown players.”
The day started with the deciding game as to whether Saints would finish in second or third in the league, but unfortunately the result didn’t go their way with a 20-18 loss against Help for Heroes.
“It was a very close game as the scoreline suggests and they’ve been close games throughout against them, but I am proud of the team’s efforts,” said Higgins.
Saints bounced back with a 25-17 victory over Northeast Barbarians. Higgins said: “We took an early strong lead; the team were outstanding they really gelled together putting everything that they’ve been working on into action and that that was a great win.”
The penultimate game of the day was the derby with Leicester Tigers, and it was a 30-15 loss but not without a valiant performance by Saints. Higgins said: “By this point Tigers had already won the Premiership, so we were the underdogs and there was no expectation for us to win. In first half we went pretty much toe-to-toe with them but then Tigers eventually took the lead and pushed on from there.”
Saints finished their day at home on a high with a 23-11 win over Solent Sharks. Higgins said: “It was a really strong performance from the team taking an early lead, by half-time we were leading by nine points and continued to extend that with a brilliant winning scoreline.”
With the WR5s season now over for Saints, Higgins and the team now look ahead to the Development League which starts in September and has now expanded to five teams – which will present an opportunity for newer players to gain more court time.
Saints have also put a number of players forward for temporary classification to join with the UK Police disability team in submitting a Paralympic discipline squad.
Higgins added: “We would like to extend a thank you to RedHat Photos who continue to sponsor the team as well as providing photography, it is greatly appreciated, and we are always open to new sponsors to get on board too.
“Lastly, I’d like to give a big thank you to Maplefields Academy for supporting the team with providing a venue for training.”
The team now enters a summer break, returning to training on the 16 August. If anyone is interested in playing Wheelchair Rugby that has a physical disability either at junior or senior level, please email [email protected].
