Matt Carlson deked the final Arjunnagar defender and dove across the try line, grounding the ball in an impeccable belly flop, if he did say so himself. As the referee's whistle blew to signal the try and the scoreboard flashed Nova Anglicana 33-14 Arjunnagar, Buddy Crist and Tom Townsend rushed in and engaged in a big group hug. "First fookin' try for Nova Anglicana, b'y!" Crist's voice boomed out across the pitch as the Nova Anglican fans roared their heads off and the neutrals clapped lustily. Carlson smiled a huge grin. Sure, it was at the end of the game against a winless minnow like Arjunnagar, but it felt good scoring his first international try.
The Arjunnagar guys were pretty big and mostly older, which made Carlson nervous at first. They looked like the kind of guys that wouldn't hesitate to get in some cheap shots in the scrum if they were playing fifteens. Or the kinds of guys that could put a hurt on you in the open field, if they managed to lay a hand on you, that is. But they looked pretty tired and smelled like they'd been drinking earlier. If that was the case, they might have been drinking themselves into a stupor since yesterday, seeing as their previous three games were all losses, two of them by at least 28 points. Even Sevendia had managed to handle them by sixteen, and they were all so ridiculously tall that it was a wonder they managed to be competent at sevens at all. The subs had bragged that they were going to do Arjunnagar like the starters had done Natanians and Nosts, score seven tries and pitch a shutout. It didn't quite turn out that way, but it was 21-7 at the half and now they were about to go up by twenty-one.
He accepted the tee from Jean Tremblay, carefully placed the ball on the tee, and booted it straight through the uprights. 35-14. It felt pretty good, especially since Denís Ferrer had promised the subs that a win by three tries or more would mean the subs got to start again against Sevendia later that day. With any luck, he'd make it two tries on the day - that would be something to call his parents about.