WEST Somerset rugby player Wes Pooley is celebrating an international victory that has inspired players and youngsters on and off the pitch.

The 34-year-old has returned to his home in Minehead after a tour of South Africa playing for the Deaf Welsh national rugby team.

And the team, the current world deaf champions, secured two victories against the ‘Deaf Boks’ – 48-3 in the first test and 65-8 in the second - to claim the inaugural Africa Deaf Rugby Cup.

Wes (pictured) plays outside centre or full back and teaches at 1610 leisure sites in West Somerset and Bridgwater. He was back in Minehead Barbarians’s 1st XV for the match on Saturday.

He is hard of hearing and has played top-level rugby across the world as a member of the Deaf Welsh team for the past ten years.

As well as taking part in the test series, both the Welsh and South African teams worked together to put on coaching sessions for a school of 150 deaf children in Pretoria.

Wes said playing in South Africa had been as inspiring as it was emotional:

“The event meant such a lot to those involved as it had entailed such a lot of hard work and fundraising with support from local companies and supporters to make it happen.

“It also gave us the opportunity to work with local deaf school children to show them through coaching that disability is not a bar to taking up a sport or meeting your potential at any level.”