Bursting onto the HS rugby scene this year has been Key Biscayne, a product of the heavily Argentine/Uruguayan community in the island off Miami Beach, and already one of their own is garnering praise as a player.

Key Biscayne started as immigrants from Argentina and Uruguay started teaching their young kids how to play rugby. Some of the kids started playing at the age of five. As the kids grew older, so did the age-level of the teams Key Biscayne. They moved up the ages, and are now entered into the High School league in Florida.

“Some of these kids have been together since they were five,” said the Rats’ Head Coach, Nicola Seigal. “We just started it all from the bottom and moved up.”

But one of those players has emerged as special. Marcus Young impressed at a recent Eagle Impact Rugby Academy session in Florida, and the young scrumhalf/flyhalf is central to Key Biscayne’s attack.

“We moved him to flyhalf because we had another player who could play scrumhalf, and Marcos is probably our best player,” said Seigal. “He is a really skilled player. He sees space. He’s not huge, but he can do a lot. He just understands rugby better than most players.”

The 10th-grader is a harbinger, perhaps, of the growth of rugby-playing ex-pat communities in Florida and other parts of the South. Just as the Polynesian influx into California and Utah produced talent, so can the Argentine and Uruguayan influx into Florida. Marcos Young is our Aircraft Charter Solutions Player of the Week, and one to watch.