USRC Tigers ran unbeaten Gai Wu Falcons close at So Kon Po, losing a tight encounter, 12-0. In the weekend’s other Women’s Premiership match Kowloon beat City Sparkle 21-0. The match between Valley Black and HKFC Ice was postponed. For the National league 1 & 2 results click here.
The tight contest between last year’s second and third places finishers saw the Tigers trail 5-0 at the break despite Falcons exerting a strong territorial advantage in the first forty minutes.
“We played superb rugby in the first half,” said Falcons coach Lai Yiu-pang. “We kept Tigers under a lot of pressure and penned them back in their half for most of the opening period. We knew that the game was going to be a physical test and we matched up with them well. I think they only managed to get the ball in our half one or two times in the first half.”
Lai credited his forward pack, laden with Hong Kong fifteens and sevens stars, as the difference makers this afternoon, saying, “Our forwards did really well in both attack and defence. We have a lot of sevens players in the backline who are just coming off their international season and I think they need to develop their fifteens-sense a bit more as we made a lot of errors in the backline today.”
The Falcons had their full compliment of 13 national squad representatives available including Aggie Poon Pak-yan who played for 65 minutes in her first fifteens game of the season, after being injured in the Asian sevens series.
Despite the loss, Tigers coach Liu Kwok-leung was proud of his team’s efforts: “Compared to our game against Valley [a 32-3 loss] last weekend we played much better today. The girls took the lessons from last week to heart and showed a big improvement.”
Ahead of the game, Liu had warned his side of the importance of closing down Gai Wu’s speed and attack in open play. That comment proved true as Gai Wu pulled away for good in the second half after capitalising on a rare defensive miscue by Tigers, when a botched clearance kick failed to make touch and was returned by Falcon’s speedy wing Chong Ka-yan for a try that put the game out of reach for Tigers.
Liu also bemoaned his side’s inability to convert their chances saying, “We had a lot of possession but we couldn’t take our opportunities to score. The game was really close especially in the first half with both teams’ defences playing very well and forcing a lot of errors.
Our defensive effort was top notch. We really shut them down in the first half and our line speed and communication on defence was really good, but we just lacked some composure on attack.”
“We are looking forward to the second round of matches and will analyse our early performance with the players, but there is a lot we can build off from this match. I think we may need to refine some of our patterns and structures when we play against the top teams like Valley and Falcons, but it is coming together well,” Liu added.
The Falcons’ win brought its hot streak to five matches, during which they have only conceded a single unconverted try. Next up they taken on Valley Black for what promises to be the match of the season so far next week. While the Tigers now prepare to take on Football Club.
Kowloon collected its first win of the season, 21-0 over Premiership debutants City, who were hunting for their first win in Hong Kong Women’s Rugby’s top flight.
Additional reporting and image: HKrugby