Jodie Ounsley

For world-champion coal carrier Phil Ounsley, seeing his daughter haul a bag of carrots around the kitchen was a sign she had a sporting future. He was right. Four years after first picking up a rugby ball, Jodie was offered an England contract and the former cat photographer had set her sights on the Tokyo Olympics. 

The video starts with the double wrought-iron gates opened to reveal a leaf-covered driveway, the dappled autumnal light adding to the romance of the setting. A ginger cat looks over its shoulder, perhaps wondering who is coming up the drive, before a couple – wrapped up for an afternoon of leaf-kicking in the Yorkshire countryside – walk into view. Then there’s the scratching post of wound naval-strength rope, the cat sunk into the duvet of the comfiest-looking bunkbed, the cat in the hammock, the cat in the four-poster, the cat being indulgently groomed, the cat watching fish on an HD television, and the cat eating the finest cut of salmon from a seafood platter. “Yeah, we’ve got a cat hotel,” explains Jodie Rose Ounsley, one of England’s new sevens stars, while completely under-selling the luxury hotel, The Ings Luxury Cat Hotel (theingsluxurycathotel.co.uk) owned by her parents. “We’ve had it for about six years, it was Mum and Dad’s idea, they wanted somewhere they’d want to take our cat, and thought, ‘why not a luxury cat hotel?’ We didn’t think it would be as successful as it has been, but it’s been crazy. 

“It’s like a normal hotel but for cats,” says Jodie, who was the hotel’s official photographer before signing a full-time rugby contract. “They’ve all got their own rooms, obviously, they’ve got four poster beds, their own TVs, they have cocktails, Saturday night discos, cat prosecco.

“The rooms are like half the size of my bedroom, so it’s quite a big room for a cat, then they have shelves and an outside area but we’ve also got the lodge which is a Center Parcs for cats. It’s more like woodland, with trees, a bigger outside area for the cats.

“And we’re about to open the next part which is the tower suites, two luxury suites with big towers outside that they can go in. But with the lockdown we can’t open yet. 

“We normally have over 40 cats, but in each room you can only have cats from the same family – which is sometimes four to six cats.”

The hotel is just outside Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, where Jodie has always called home. “I grew up in Dewsbury, but since I got my England sevens contract, I’ve been living in Twickenham which is a big, weird step, because I’m used to being surrounded by northern people,” she says. “I’m in an academy house with one other academy player, Beth Wilcock, we never really knew each other before but we’re good housemates I’d say.”

We’re conducting the interview via Zoom, and Jodie’s effervescent personality pops up at  all times, as she responds to every question with the upbeat demeanour you imagine she tackles every challenge with. And she’s had a few. “I was born profoundly deaf,” she says.  “That means I’m completely deaf in both ears, I hear absolutely nothing. Someone could fire a gun near me and I just wouldn’t hear. 

“When I was fourteen months, I had a cochlear implant fitted,” continues Jodie, pointing to the metal disc behind her right ear. “There’s a magnet fitted to my head and it’s not a cure but it allows me to have some hearing, it’s so amazing how it works, even now it baffles me how a little electronic device can allow me to hear. 

“I’m not sure entirely how it works but it’s a magnet attached to my skull and, if I take it off, I won’t be able to hear anything you say, but it just sticks to my head. 

“Some people say it’s like you’re a robot, and yeah, maybe I am! I don’t have one on my left ear, so I’ve had plenty of awkward situations when people have been sat on this side and talking to me and I’ve just not heard them and [they must be]  thinking I’m really rude. 

“Now they tend to put two on people. A couple of years back they asked if I’d like another one fitted but I decided not as I’ve coped just fine with just the one and I think it’s a bigger risk what with sport.”

Explaining how much she can hear is no easy task. “This is all I’ve known, so I don’t know what you’re hearing, but the way people describe it is that you hear things in a way that’s a bit robotic. If you say a sentence, it’s likely that I’ll only pick up one or two words, but I get what you’re saying in an overall way.”

Talking to Jodie, if you didn’t notice the disc, you’d never know she had any hearing difficulty, as there’s no delay in speech and she answers questions immediately, without ever asking for something to be repeated. “I rely a lot on lip reading,” she says. “I didn’t think I did at first, but if the TV’s on mute or the video hasn’t got any sound on, I can just watch that whole video and understand what they’re saying.”

Her speech is perfect. “When I got the implant, I went on a huge learning journey of speech therapy and learning how to listen, how to hear and concentrate on what people are saying – there was a lot of years’ of learning and developing to make me how I am now.”

Competition has always been part of Jodie’s life. A quick search on the Dewsbury teenager and, amid the stories about accolades for jiu-jitsu, being honoured by England Deaf rugby, appearing at the deaf Olympics and winning Young Deaf Personality of the Year, there’s also tales of the man we can see in the cat hotel promotional video. Dad Phil first spotted Jodie’s thirst for competition when she was attempting to mimic him at his own game – as a former winner of the World Cole Carrying Championships. “It’s amazing, my dad has won it a couple of times,” she says. “He remembers when I was about three and I just picked up a sack of carrots and started running around the kitchen like a crazy little kid and from then he thought I was going to be sporty. 

“The coal race is for kids and adults. For the kids, it’s like a sprint down the road with a bag of sand and, as the age grade goes up, the longer the distance and the heavier the bag.

“The adult race is a mile run uphill with a sack of coal. In the women’s it’s 20kg and for the men it’s 40 or 50kg. Near the end it’s so good because there are so many watching, it’s a whole line of people that cheer you on to the end and then you cross the line and throw your coal onto some hay and that’s it – there’s prize money too.”

Do the contenders come from all over? “Most people are northern but it’s such a big event, which is crazy as it’s just people running with coal on their back. 

“I’ve competed in it since I was five, I was younger than I should have been because I lied about my age and I used to do it every year. 

“I don’t think I’m technically allowed to do it anymore though,” she says, hinting at the fine print on her England sevens’  contract. “I didn’t do it last year as I was in Australia but I really want to do it. The last time I did it was the first time I entered the women’s race and it was a massive leap but I really liked the challenge, I didn’t do great, I think I came eleventh, but there were about 50 women, so I was quite pleased, but I’m really competitive so…”

Away from the carrot and coal-carrying, Jodie also followed her dad into martial arts. “My dad’s always done fighting, he’s a Brazilian jiu jitsu blackbelt – he’s won so many titles I can’t keep track, so I tried that for a couple of years,” she says. “I also did judo, karate, athletics – I just did everything just to get stuck in. I really enjoyed Brazilian jiu jitsu though, so I kind of regret giving that up.”

Did the implant cause any issues? “For a couple of fights, I had to take it off, so it was a bit of a challenge with referees trying to tell me what’s going on,” recalls Jodie. “For individual sports it wasn’t that bad, it was more team sports that I realised there were issues, but over the years I’ve developed different ways to get around it.”

It was athletics, sprinting in particular, that spurred Jodie on to believe she could compete at a high level. “I did this deaf athletics competition, I started when I was eight, and every year I was doing that, I was winning, so that just gave me the confidence for sport and, from there, I just got stuck into different things to see if I could find a true passion for what I wanted to do.”

That seemed destined to be sprinting, but rugby had caught her eye. “I always wanted to try rugby,” she says. “My younger brother Jack started playing and I went to watch him but my dad was really hesitant, he wouldn’t let me play due to my implant, he was worried about the risks. 

“Rugby was like full-on impact to the head, but I just kept nagging him ‘please Dad can I just try it?’. He saw how much I wanted to try it, so we did research on the risks, what protective gear I could wear, I got a scrum cap and went to try a session to get it out of my system.

“We went to a local club, Sandal, and I remember being in the car and being that nervous that I refused to get out and thought ‘nah, I’m just going to go home’. But I did it and I was completely hooked.”

A later starter, Jodie was fourteen, when she went for that session, and she didn’t waste any time. “The week I started, they said ‘come to the game at the weekend and we’ll put you on as a sub and give you some game time’. I thought, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know the rules, I don’t know what to do’.

“I didn’t expect to get put on, but when I did I just remember the ball coming to me and thinking ‘I’m just going to run’. And I was just passing people and sprinting and I scored a try – I was completely hooked and thought ‘this is what I want to do now’. 

“I think my dad was a bit shocked and people were a bit, ‘gosh, alright’ and I was just chuffed to even get on and to know what it felt like to score a try.”

Yorkshire under-15s soon discovered Jodie, then England North, and by sixteen she was offered a scholarship to Loughborough University for rugby. “I was doing a BTEC,” she says. “I’ve never been academic, I would never get into Loughborough without being on a rugby scholarship, but the other girls there were studying A-levels or doing the same sport BTEC.”

In her first season, when she was combining studies and training with Loughborough Lightning, she missed the campaign with a dislocated shoulder, but on her return she was called up for England U18s. “I got back from my shoulder and played a game with England under 18s against Wales at the Principality Stadium – then two weeks later I got the call from England sevens and that’s where I am today.”

Jodie had competed at the deaf Olympics just before arriving at Loughborough. Aged just sixteem, she finished ninth in the world. “I was in the 100m and 200m and, as it was for women, I didn’t think I’d get anywhere near a semi-final, but I was just one place off in the 100m and made the semi-final in the 200m,” she says. “One thing that sticks in my mind, was the 200m heat and they obviously don’t do guns [to start] because everyone’s deaf, so it’s like a traffic light system on the blocks and you have to wait for the colour to turn green. 

“I had to take my implant off and I’d never ran without the implant so it was such a weird experience – I couldn’t hear the wind, I couldn’t hear my feet touching the ground, it was just weird and I set off and completed the race. 

“Once I got back to the changing rooms this girl came up to me and she was signing, saying ‘you were disqualified’, and I was so upset thinking I’d got disqualified. I came out and met up with my parents and I was in bits, but they told me, ‘you’re not disqualified, you’re through’.”

She didn’t medal, but it gave her a slight taste of what was her ultimate sporting dream.  “It sounds daft, but I’ve always wanted to go to the Olympics, that’s all I want to do, be an athlete and go to the Olympics. 

“That’s all I’ve ever had in my head – I didn’t know what sport, I just wanted to go to the Olympics.”

Once she began daily training at Loughborough, she knew rugby was the most likely path. 

“I did a couple of sevens tournaments in the summer for Loughborough and – literally it was so random – my dad got a phone call from England sevens saying they wanted to ‘offer your daughter a contract’. 

“It was so out of the blue, so crazy, I just thought it was a prank, it was
that bizarre.”

Set to start a coaching degree last Autumn, she instead took a gap year and moved to London to focus on sevens with the Tokyo Olympics as her ultimate sporting carrot. “It changed everything,” she says. “It also meant not doing a degree, I’ve had time to do other things, to do charity stuff, to go into deaf schools and talk to children about my experiences, to interact with them and hear their stories – I just love it.”

Going into the England sevens camp has challenges for any teenager, let alone one that is deaf. “I was terrified,” she admits. “I drove there and remember being in the car thinking ‘I just can’t do this, I can’t go in’. Walking in and everyone was there, I was so nervous, but everyone was so lovely, so welcoming, so supportive, the coaches as well – it’s overwhelming how supportive they’ve been. 

“Not just bringing me in as a new young player but with my hearing, and trying to help me out, such as communicating on the field and coming up with our own hand signals – little things like that are big things for me. I don’t think I’ve ever had that much support before.” 

It also didn’t help Jodie that she was in the presence of her heroes. “I knew every one of them,” she admits. “I’d watched all of the World Series with my dad, so I’d been a massive fan of a lot of them, especially Heather Fisher and Amy Wilson Hardy. 

“I’ve just looked up to them, so I was like this fan girl going in, but they made me feel so comfortable.”

The first game for Jodie, a rugby player for just four years remember, was against the Black Ferns. “Glendale [in America] was the first tournament of the season, and I didn’t even expect to get the chance to go, but it was the last game on the first day against New Zealand, and the coach came up to me, ‘right Jodie, you’re going on’. 

“I got on and it was literally just the last minute but it was amazing to be stood on that pitch looking at all the players who I’ve always watched playing live. What an amazing moment. I literally touched the ball, froze and then decided to run into a player, which probably isn’t that great. And then it was over.”

In Cape Town, last December, she scored her first try. “I was so eager to score a try, the ball got passed to me and I just thought ‘I’m not leaving this pitch until I have scored a try’. 

“It was a sprint on the wing and a bit of a hand-off just to finish, then a slam down. I didn’t think I’d scored it, she tackled me and I rolled over, so I got up thinking I didn’t even score that, so I had to ask Abi Burton. Typical me, not realising I’d scored a try.

“I’d always dreamt of scoring a try in front of a stadium of people surrounded by England players and that was the moment that happened.”

The 13th player for the next leg in Hamilton, New Zealand, she next played in Sydney, the final event played before lockdown. For some, the delaying of the Tokyo Olympics to 2021 is far from good news, but Jodie sees it as a positive. “It’s good that they’ve been pushed as it gives me another year to develop,” she says, “but it depends if they decide to take me on.”

England, as we speak, have yet to announce the next wave of contracts. “My contract is coming to an end, and I don’t know what’s going to happen. 

“If they don’t, it’s not going to stop me, I’ll just carry on working hard because you don’t know what’s around the corner, but if I am, I’d just be so chuffed.

“I’m a bit in denial, even now [about being in the England sevens squad] that this is what I’m doing. I’m just sort of super grateful for it and soaking up all the experience I can.”

She’s made the most of lockdown, using the time to locate what must be one of the seminal moments of her life. “There are so many videos of kids and adults getting their implants – and the moment they hear for the first time – but I’ve never seen mine, so last week, I asked my mum if my reaction had ever been filmed. She didn’t know, but we had a look though some old files and found a DVD. We put it in the laptop and there was my video. 

“It was weird to watch but so nice to have that to look back on my reaction. 

“I didn’t cry, I was more stunned, but my mum was next to me bawling her eyes out. She cries at anything.”

Like others in the England set-up, Jodie has a programme to follow, but – given father and daughter’s competitive nature – it’s perhaps unsurprising to learn, she has done more than follow it. “One of the things I decided to do was a 24-hour sportathon with my family,” she says. “We had thirteen guest instructors: kickboxing, yoga, fitness circuits, S&C, rounders at midnight, gymnastics, rugby obviously, and a savage core workout by Heather Fisher, it was a whole mix.”

Jodie, Phil, brother Jack and mum Jo, all got involved as they raised thousands for charity. “My mum just had a hip replacement last year and she hadn’t done any exercise since then so we chucked her straight into a 24-hour sportathon,” laughs Jodie. “And my dad just got stuck into it, he hasn’t competed in the last year or so – he’s 52 – but he’s still training all the time and doing his own sessions.”

Back to her rugby career. Any aspirations in fifteens? “I’m not too sure,” she says. “I really do love sevens, so I haven’t really thought about fifteens, but I’m easy – whatever opportunity comes my way, I’m going to grab it.”  

Story by Alex Mead

Pictures by Ben McDade