USA flyer Carlin Isles played his first full game of fifteen a side rugby at the weekend, turning out for Ayr against Hawick in a Scottish club game. The good news is he fared well and skinned multiple players. The bad news is he dropped the ball before scoring.
If you hadn’t heard yet, Isles signed for Glasgow Warriors recently after having had a practice contract with the NFL’s Detroit Lions a few months back. He has since committed to rugby though, leaving the Sevens game behind for now and taking up a career in the RaboDirect Pro12.
“Everything has happened so quickly for me over the last couple of years and I’m just happy to be playing rugby and getting the opportunity to play at the highest level,” he said.
Isles played his first full game for Ayr this past weekend. He was up against Nikki Walker, who is 6’5 and has Test caps to his name. Isles tracked him down on one occasion, then when finally getting the ball in a bit of space he beat a whole host of players for what looked to be a great first try.
It certainly was memorable, but perhaps for the wrong reasons as he made the extra effort to get the ball under the posts, but failed to ground it properly after having done all the hard work. No try.
Gregor Townsend was impressed nevertheless, with Isles drawing comparisons to Thom Evans.
“Like Thom, he is very quick, but also very brave, and he certainly didn’t shy away from the physical stuff and wants to get involved,” said the Glasgow Warriors coach.
Isles felt he had grounded the ball and there was some debate as to whether he dropped it backwards or not, but the referee’s interpretation was that the try wasn’t scored, so Isles’ big moment was blundered.
View a candid interview with him lower down, where he talks about his move to Glasgow, the non-try itself and how he had to change his ‘spikes’ to be able to move properly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r4jXw-tzP8
A nice interview with Isles following his fifteens debut for Ayr in Scotland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYWk4EUgq1Q
Thanks and credit to bordersrugby.net
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