-Credit:Jonathan Myers
She still has the boots.
Caked in the mud from that fateful day, they’re normally kept stored away, a grim reminder of the moment everything changed forever. A day that understandably would rather be forgotten.
Just 12 months ago, Caitlin Jones was working in a job she loved, was looking ahead to a promising career as a model and, perhaps most importantly, was seemingly closing in on her childhood dream of pulling on the famous red shirt of Wales.
After first picking up a rugby ball at the age of six, the young full-back had progressed through the ranks at Cardiff and then Bath, and was on the cusp of international recognition. Indeed, had she followed though on her potential trajectory, there’s every chance she would be preparing for a Six Nations campaign.
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Then, one afternoon, Jones was granted a permit to play in a lower level local match. It would end up being a decision that would change the course of her life forever.
After making a tackle, she ended up at the bottom of a ruck and says she received several blows to the head. She believed there was nothing untoward at the time, but it would ultimately leave her with injuries that would not only extinguish her rugby career, but would also blow an irreparable hole into her quality of life.
“I got up and I couldn’t really see. All I could see was the grass and then it was like all black, with a little dot of the grass.
“Then I carried on playing for a couple of minutes because of the adrenaline. Then the play got back to the other side of the field and there was a girl running towards me with the ball, and I could see three of her.”
Jones thought she’d suffered a concussion, as did the doctors that initially treated her when she was rushed to hospital. However, after seeing a neurologist it became clear her injuries were far more severe.
Caitlin was diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder, caused by the nerve endings being damaged following what she claims was a blow to the back of the head.
Caitlin Jones at home 10 months on from the injury that ended her rugby career -Credit:Jonathan Myers
“I forget what it’s called, but there’s a little back bit of your brain, and that was inflamed,” she says pointing to the top of her neck. “They explained it by saying my brain was like a snow globe, and they shake the snow globe and everything goes everywhere.
“I couldn’t walk because my nervous system was affected. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t go to the toilet.
“I was weeing myself all the time. I couldn’t do anything. The first time I went to the hospital, they discharged me with mild concussion. That was the day of the bump. Then I went two days later, because I’d had a big seizure from it. When I woke up from the seizure I couldn’t feel my legs.
“They put me through to a neurologist, and I had scans and things. They just said it was something I’d have to live with now. That my nervous system was damaged and it wasn’t going to go back to normal.”
The 22-year-old had already previously been living with non-epileptic attack disorder NEAD, which she says was brought on by the stress of her GCSE’s, but having learned to live with that condition, and kickstarting her rugby career, this latest injury proved too much to overcome.
Caitlin would spend the next few months in a wheelchair, before then going through an intense rehabilitation, during which the simplest of tasks became a massive challenge.
“I didn’t want to leave the house for ages,” she says. “It wasn’t safe for me to leave the house because I was basically told that if I hit my head ever again, I might not be as lucky as last time.
“If I carried on playing rugby and hit my head again. I might not live.
“Because I couldn’t walk properly, it wasn’t safe for me to walk down the street.
“I was just in bed for months and months. The only time we could go somewhere was if my mother finished work early and could take me for a sandwich somewhere. She took me to Tesco for a day out one time.
“Even now, I don’t like being left on my own. I don’t go far. I can’t really do anything.”
Jones, who says she also suffers from memory loss and depression from the incident, claims that nearly a year on, the slightest blow to the head could be a potentially massive danger to her health.
Caitlin Jones pictured during her playing days -Credit:Jonathan Myers
“Just after it happened I was sat with my dog,” she explains. “He flung his head back, not hard, and caught me in the chin. I had a seizure from it.
“I’m always going to have that. I have anxiety about going out. I don’t go out with my friends, because if we went to the beach, it’s so far away from my house. So far away from the hospital. You don’t get signal at the beach. So I don’t go there just in case.”
Coming from a rugby-mad family in Treorchy, giving up the game she loved was hard enough, but many other facets of what was once a rich and fulfilling personal life have similarly proved too much of a challenge.
Her condition means she’s now unable to hold down a job, having previously worked in a factory making sports equipment, while she’s also been forced to put a promising modelling career on ice.
Caitlin suffered life-changing injuries during a rugby match earlier this year -Credit:Jonathan Myers
“I’d been modelling since I was nine. Then I went into pageants. I won Miss Teen UK and I was going to compete in Miss European, but then Covid hit.
“I just don’t feel I can do it now. I just don’t have the confidence.”
Jones has leaned heavily on the support of her family, including her mother, who was a key figure in helping her developing her love for the game in the first place, having played for several local clubs.
“She used to drag me to training with her because she was a single mother and had no one to have me. I used to be picking up the cones after the sessions, and collecting balls.
Caitlin had ambitions of one day playing for Wales -Credit:Jonathan Myers
“I started playing tag with the boys. Back then there was no under-13s for girls. Once you got to under-10s, girls couldn’t play with the boys anymore. You had to wait until you were under 18. But then I had to go down to Cardiff to play then.
“I started playing at Treorchy. Then I went to Cardiff Quins for under-15s and under-18s. Then I went on to Cardiff Blues. I played for Llantwit Fardre for a couple of months. That’s when I transitioned into Bath and got into Wales, the emerging team, which is like the Wales academy, the set-up for the sevens, under-20s, seniors. I’d just got through to the senior squad when this happened.
“I’d just got into the senior squad when this happened. So I would have been playing in the Six Nations next year hopefully or this year. That’s what it would have been.”
Highlighting her story perhaps brings about some much-needed closure, although there’s clearly no shortage of uncertainty over what the future will now hold.
One potential avenue is to raise awareness around the devastating impact of head injuries, which she says is too often still met with a blasé attitude by many inside the game.
“It’s something I want to do, but I’m not too sure how yet,” she says.
Caitlin Jones, a fearless fullback, faced an injury that ended her rugby journey and redefined her future. -Credit:Jonathan Myers
“I just want people to realise that a bump to the head is not just a bump to the head. If you have a really hard hit to the head, it can change everything.
“You see kids getting stronger when they get to youth and seniors and a lot of them think they’re too cool to wear a scrum cap. I did. I thought I’d look silly in the photos! But I just think that people should be aware of what it does to protect your brain.”
“If one person listens and wears a scrum cap. Or wears a gumshield. Then I’m happy.”