Justin Boyd wasn’t afraid to make his voice heard.

Mistakes, missed assignments … somebody on the field had to point them out. The USA wing was one of only three veteran players on the Southern California team at the Men’s 7s National All-Star Championships in Chula Vista, Calif., and one of them, Taylor Howden, was down with a concussion.

The other, Peter Sio, was a superbly experienced athlete who led by example, but has always been soft-spoken. That left Boyd.

“Yeah I had no problem speaking up,” Boyd told RUGBYMag.com. “We had a lot of new and young players and we had to recognize mistakes, flush ‘em, and move on. I made mistakes, too. I dropped a ball that I should have caught, and I would have scored a try. You have to recognize it, then flush it and get back to it.”

“Justin was a big player and a big leader for us,” added SoCal Head Coach Craig Hartley. “To have a guy who’s not only a national team player, but a current national team player battling to get onto the team again, showed the players a lot about what it takes to play at this level. He was vocal, and we needed him to be.”