Glenwood rugby star looking to put sport, talent on the map

It’s said rugby is a hooligans sports played by gentleman.

Isaac Bales can’t argue with the gentleman aspect of the game of rugby but one gets the feeling, he’s okay with the hooligan part too.

“Hitting people, laying people out and getting laid out, I just love physical, contact sports; that’s fun to me,” said Bales, a Glenwood Community High School senior who was just one of three players from the Nebraska Rugby League selected for the 25-man USA Rugby South team that played in an international tournament matching the Americans with a dozen of the Caribbean’s best ruggers.    

So how does a 15-year-old Glenwood kid who loves football and wrestling pick up rugby?
You Tube, of course.

Bales first watched the sport a few years ago after discovering it on Internet videos. Bales’ parents, Tony and Wendy Bales, encouraged his interest by taking him to a match featuring the Omaha Goats, a popular area semi-pro team.

“I thought it was really cool and we signed up with the high school league and it all started from there,” Bales said.

A standout wrestler and football player already, Bales immediately took to the physicality of the sport.
“Any sport that’s physical, that’s fun to me,” he reiterated.

Bales plays for the Council Bluffs Rugby Club in the 10-team Nebraska Rugby League. Bales was one of several Glenwood athletes on the Council Bluffs team this summer, including Noah Carter, Cody Oliphant, Hunter Haggstrom, Deshawn McVay, Trevor Anderson, Brian Krewson, Zach Lacy and Parker Sell. He helped recruit some of the Glenwood talent to the team.

“At first it was just me but then they started hearing about it and they love it now,” he said.

Each year 25 players from the Nebraska league are tabbed for the all-state team that competes in a regional tournament in Denver. At the regionals, players are selected and invited to try out for the national team.
Bales, fellow Glenwood player Noah Carter, and three others from the Nebraska all-state team were selected to compete for a spot on the national team in Nashville.

Bales, along with Noah Menses from Plattsmouth and Doug Vawter from Omaha were selected for the under-19 national team. In July, the team competed in the 2017 Rugby Americas North International Tournament in Miami. The tournament featured 20 matches and 12 teams from all over the Caribbean. Bales’ junior varsity team, comprised mostly of high school aged players, placed fifth while the varsity team made up of mostly college players, was first.

“It was a lot of fun playing against the teams there. They’ve been playing since they were little kids and the sport is huge there,” Bales said. “They were great teams to play against. It was a great experience and a lot of fun playing down there.”

Justin Johnson coaches the Nebraska all-state team. He wasn’t surprised to see Bales selected for the USA Rugby South team. When he first saw Bales play last year he saw two signs of potential in a raw athlete that was picking up the game fast: he was not afraid of contact and he was very coachable.

“He was a shorter, stocky kid who liked to make those hard hits and get in on the dirty areas of the game and those players are hard to find at a young age,” Johnson said. “They’re just learning the sport and they’re a little tentative. He wasn’t. But the biggest thing I saw was is he listened. You tell him what he’s doing wrong or what he’s doing right and if its wrong, he looks for ways to fix it. He’ll stick around and work on his mistakes and he gets better.”

Bales plays as a hooker and flanker for his rugby club. For the novice, rugby consists of 15 players: forwards and backs. In football terms they would be the lineman and the running backs. Each side is matched in a territorial, full-contact, team game where the aim is to matriculate an oval shape ball past the “try line” to outscore the opponent.

The hooker’s job is to “hook” the ball with his feet and sweep it to a back from a scrum. The flanker on defense – what in football terms is the middle linebacker– attacks the back with the ball on the opposing team.

“We’re like a lineman in football,” Bales said of his role as a forward. “We keep things together, score try’s and make tackles.”

In football, where the 5-foot-10, 215 pound Bales enters his senior year as a fullback and defensive lineman for Glenwood, one sport has informed the other, from the muscle memory to the training techniques to the understanding of team role.

“Football has helped me in rugby and rugby has helped me in football,” Bales said. “They kind of work great together and I’ve learned a lot from both.

The comparisons to football don’t end at the physicality and the general shape of the ball for Bales. He sees many commonalities among the blocking, tackling and violent collisions. Just one being without pads.

“They are closely related I think,” he said. “But I think rugby is more of a team sport. You really have to communicate with each other. In football you don’t have a lot of time to talk with each other between plays and really go ‘Okay, this is what we’re going to do.’ It’s kind of on the go, like basketball where you just have to keep going.”

Which sport he prefers is an easy question.

“Honestly, I like rugby more,” he said.

So much so he hopes to continue on playing in college. Rugby is one of the fastest growing sports in the U.S. and college scholarships for the sport are becoming common.

“A lot of people are looking at rugby now and a lot of colleges are looking into it,” he said.

Johnson definitely thinks Bales can play go on to play rugby in college and will likely have a lot of scholarship interest. The coach recently saw Bales was listed among the top 50 “hooker” position players in his age group nationally.

“He’s improved a ton since his sophomore year and will continue to through his senior season,” Johnson said. “Several colleges I know are looking at him. He has a good chance because he puts in the work.”