England Deaf Rugby are gearing up for an exciting week as they head to the Deaf Sports Personality of the Year 2018 awards at Emirates Old Trafford on Saturday 10th November.

After a hugely successful season, EDRU are nominated for three awards, with Jodie Ounsley up for Young Deaf Sports Personality of the Year, Sean Fletcher up for coach the year, and EDRU collectively up for Team of the year.

The 2017/18 season will go down as the most successful season to date. 12 months ago, to the weekend, England secured their first victory of a 3-0 test series win against New Zealand. That test series will go down as monumental in the growth of Deaf Rugby globally.

Captain, Luke Cheyne spoke of his pride for EDRU. “It’s been an amazing year. The test series against New Zealand was one of the most physical challenges we have ever faced. New Zealanders’ are raised with a rugby ball in their hands, so we knew it was going to be a tough challenge, but perhaps we were never quite ready for just how tough it would be. We were close to loosing the second test but the resilience we showed demonstrated how much it means to our players to represent the rose and play for their country.”

Cheyne added "to go on and win the series 3-0, and to receive such fantastic support from across the world was huge. We certainly see it as a marker for the growth of deaf sport and deaf rugby."

Just a few months later, England Deaf secured their first test victory over close rival Wales, since 2012 at Ilkley RFC in Yorkshire. Cheyne added "that victory was huge for us. We have came so close over the previous few seasons, and perhaps been let down by our own ill discipline, but we took our chances well and deserved to win. It's always a great contest when we face wales, so we're looking forward to locking horns again in Cardiff in Jan 2019".

Moving onto the World Deaf Rugby 7s Championships in Sydney during April 2018, England took both a men’s and women’s squad to compete in the tournament. England women secured the gold medal with a competitive victory over Australia, whilst England men narrowly lost out to Wales in the final, after comprehensive victories over Japan and Fiji in the Quarter-Finals and Semi-Finals respectively.

EDRU topped off the 2018 year with a double, men's and women's victory over the full Bulgaria national sides in September this year.

Updated 11:29 - 5 Nov 2018 by PR & Media Department