At the start of March 2020, everything in Tom Sadler鈥檚 life seemed to be falling in to place.
He was entering the final stages of his physiotherapy degree at the 国产视频, had just secured his first job with the NHS, and, perhaps most excitingly of all, he had just been selected to play for Worcester Cavaliers, the A Team for Premiership pro rugby outfit the Worcester Warriors. Then the Covid-19 outbreak in the UK turned Tom’s plans on their head, plunged him in to the world of work in the midst of the worst health crisis for 100 years, and slammed the breaks on his burgeoning rugby career.
Growing up in the rugby heartlands of South Wales, Tom played rugby day in and day out from the age of 4, dreaming of one day making it all the way to the top.
At 21 years-old and playing regularly for both the University team and local semi-pro outfit Bromsgrove, the chance to step into a Cavaliers shirt and play along-side full time professionals from the Warriors squad could have been his big break. Tom certainly remembers the moment he came on as a second half substitute with great fondness:
“I couldn't believe it," he says. "There's Ed Fidow, who had just come back from the World Cup with Samoa, and I'm coming on for him. It was a dream come true. I don’t think I lit the game up when I got my chance, but I think I was solid.”
Shortly after the Cavaliers game, and whilst waiting to hear if he’d done enough to be called back for another shot, the country was plunged into lockdown, and everything ground to a shuddering halt.
“It was a very peculiar way to end my three years as a student at Worcester,” Tom admits. “The colours Ball, varsity, dissy hand in day, none of it happened.”
Instead, Tom finished his dissertation whilst locked down at home, and then joined the NHS early to play his part in holding back the Covid tide. Far from finding starting his first job in the midst of a global pandemic intimidating, Tom, who works at Worcestershire Royal Hospital, is grateful for the opportunity.
“It felt like a privilege to be trusted to qualify early, and to be able to help people in their hour of need,” he says.
Although newly qualified, Tom didn’t baulk at the challenge of joining an NHS under extreme pressure.
“Working in a pandemic is all I’ve known really,” he says. “I worked with colleagues who have 20 years of experience or more and they haven’t seen anything like this either, so in that sense we’re all in the same boat.”
And Tom feels his course at the 国产视频 has given him the best start possible, even in these unprecedented times.
“The course gave me a great foundation, and now it’s up to me to build from there,” he explains. “You have to grow to meet the moment and use your emotional intelligence. People are scared, of course, and if they’ve just had a positive Covid result they will need your care and compassion, but you have to have those qualities to pursue these kinds of careers in the first place.”
And when it comes to his other great passion, rugby, Tom is equally level-headed.
“I still have big ambitions in the game,” he adds. “That Cavaliers match was the greatest night of my playing career, and I’m sad that it was cut short at that point, but if I keep training hard and playing well for Bromsgrove - when we get back to matches - I might earn that chance again. You limit what you can achieve if you dwell on these things because you don’t move on and think about how to get back there.”
Tom knows that, as a player, he may well have a limit, but he is determined to work as hard as he can to push himself as far as he can, regardless of the setbacks caused by the pandemic.
“Whilst the gyms were closed, I got so sick of training in my back garden that I decided to run a marathon,” he says. “I’ve always pushed myself hard in training and there’s only so much you can do at home.”
“I mapped out a circuit around my local area and set up a refuelling station by putting some bottles of water and carbs in the boot of my car,”
“It was a bit stupid really because I’ve never run more than about 10km before. I was in bits for days afterwards,” he adds.
Tom’s dedication, belief in learning the lessons that are there to be learned, and training hard, apply equally to his rugby and his career as a physiotherapist.
“Just like with rugby, I want to be the best physio I can be,” he says. “Learning is a massive part of that. I am missing rugby, but I have a lot to learn as a physio each and every day, and that’s enough for now. I just want to get my head down and do my best for each patient I see.”
***second photo courtesy of Joe Cobbold***