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Women’s rugby in Hong Kong has been going from strength to strength in recent years and this has been reflected in the national 15s and 7s team results; highlighted by the 7s team winning their first ever Asia Rugby Women’s Sevens Series tournament in Qingdao last September.
So it’s more than a little disappointing that the male dominated hierarchy of the HKRU continue to remain so blind to the attractions of women’s rugby, especially in an Olympic year when Hong Kong are still in with a chance of a place in Rio. With women’s rugby 7s expanding fast globally that only ten teams, down from twelve in recent year’s, will take part in the 19th Hong Kong Women’s Rugby Sevens (HKWRS) is depressing.
bc has supported the Women’s 7s since its inception and know that teams want to come to play, and the national side needs the experience of playing teams outside Asia, but cite costs as the main problem in attending the tournament. The HKRU is awash with cash but the men in charge remain too cheap to, and blind to the benefits of, financially supporting the expansion and improvement of the HKWRS. The nine countries, from four continents joining Hong Kong are: Argentina, China, France, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
Tournament Director Ruth Mitchell and former Hong Kong captain said of the announcement “I’m excited at how the tournament has progressed over the years. Hong Kong is the longest established women’s sevens tournament in the world and we have had 38 international teams participate over the past 19 years. This year, for the first time, all of the teams have played in the tournament before, so we can expect a high standard of play and with plenty of Asian teams involved, the rivalry is sure to be intense,”
Of the participating teams, France, Kenya and Japan have already qualified for the Rio Summer Games in August, where rugby 7s will make it’s debut at the Olympics. France and Japan are also participating on the Women’s Sevens Series this season with France in fourth place in the standings and Japan eleventh of the 12 core teams. Both teams have figured in recent HKWRS Cup finals. Japan lost to Canada, 19-12, last year while France was beat by Canada, 24-0, in 2014.
Argentina, China, Kazakhstan and Hong Kong will compete in the Olympic repechage tournament in Dublin in June, making the HKWRS an important preparation event for the final stage of Olympic qualification. The winner in Dublin will be the 12th and final team to qualify for the Women’s Rugby Sevens competition at the Rio Games.
As always, Asia is well represented with the hosts Hong Kong, China, Japan, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka and Thailand all taking part. Japan and China finished first and second in Asia last season with Hong Kong hot on their heels in third place in the region.
Hong Kong Women’s Sevens coach Anna Richards commented on the field assembled saying, “There is a good range of teams this year with sides from Africa, Europe and South America, alongside the top teams from Asia. It’s always good to get a chance to play against teams with different styles then those we see in the region and it will be helpful for us as prepare for the Olympic qualifier in Ireland where there will be 16 teams from all over the world.”
Last year, Hong Kong, after beating beat Samoa in the quarterfinal, narrowly missed out on reaching their first cup final losing the semi 10-5 to Japan. Another close result went against the hosts when they lost the third place play-off to the Netherlands, 14-7. It was Hong Kong’s best ever performance in the HKWRS and set the stage for a strong run in the Asia Rugby Women’s Sevens series later in the year.
“We got on a roll last year with a great start on the opening day when we beat China and Kazakhstan. Those performances gave us the self-belief we needed to go out and compete both on day two and later in the year on the Asian series. We will need another fast start this year so a lot will be riding on what pool we are drawn in as we need to finish either first or second in our group to advance to the cup,” Richards said. The tournament draw for the HKWRS will be held alongside the Hong Kong Sevens draw on Monday, 14 March.
Complicating matters for Richards is a lack of warm-up events for the women’s team ahead of the HKWRS: “Last year we had two tournaments in the build up to the sevens, but this year we don’t have any. We’ve been training really hard and are working closely with the Sports Science team at the Hong Kong Sports Institute, but I know the girls are excited about the prospect of our first tournament action since November last year.”
Richards has had to get creative to accentuate the build-up campaign. The sevens training squad will play a series of training games against a touring side from Princeton University on March 16.
Richards, a former New Zealand international, has also negotiated with the New Zealand Rugby Union to organise a group of New Zealand Sevens development players who the HKRU are flying up to Hong Kong, where they will mix with top local players in a Barbarians format, for a two-day training camp at the Hong Kong Sports Institute on March 19 and 20.
The HKWRS tournament in on Thursday and Friday, (7-8 April) with the opening day’s action at Kings Park in Kowloon. Day Two will be held at the Hong Kong Football Club (8 April) with the final again being held beneath the lights at the HK Stadium as a main focus of the opening day of the Hong Kong Sevens.
Noor Ali Zadran’s straight boundary off the first ball of Afghanistan’s innings heralded the start of the end. With little swing or nip off the surface, the pacemen resorted to gentle off-cutters. Afzal then turned to spin in the hope of doing to Afghanistan what Nabi and Rashid Khan did to them. But the batsmen’s application thwarted their designs as Afghanistan scored 43 in the first six overs. Overconfidence got the better of Shahzad, who holed out to long-off for a 40-ball 41 to give Campbell his first T20 wicket. Nabi and Noor Ali then milked the bowling before an ungainly slog ended Nabi’s stay. Two balls later, Noor Ali was run-out courtesy Hayat’s flat throw from the deep.
