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HK Cricket Match Reports: Saturday 10 October, 2015

Saturday Championship Division 1
At Hong Kong Cricket Club, there was a tied result (the second this season) with HKCC Nomads and HKCC Gap Ramblers sharing the spoils.

Gap Ramblers found themselves batting first after losing the toss but their openers got them away to a good start with 41 runs for the first wicket. David Varley led the batsmen with 61 while Justin Alexander boosted the score with 34 not out from number 10 as Gap Ramblers finished on 8/178 from their 35 overs.

Nomads got off to a poor start, losing their top three batsmen with only seven runs on the board. They looked dead and buried at 6/80 but some positive lower order batting, especially from Pushpendra Sharma and Luke Rewega, got them on level terms. A run out from a direct hit, as the batsmen tried for a second run to win the game, saw the match finish all square. For Nomads, Toby Brown top scored with 53 while Raag Kapur picked up 3/40 for Gap Ramblers.
At HKCC: HKCC Gap Ramblers 8/178 from 35 overs tied with HKCC Nomads 178 from 34.4 overs.

Over at Kowloon Cricket Club, KCC Saracens enjoyed a three-wicket victory over HKCC Witherers. Witherers batted first after being sent in by Saracens but they could only muster 9/123 from their 35 overs with Charlie Bright’s 36 the only score of any significance.

Ninad Shah led the Saracens reply with a fine 46, while Simandeep Singh finished things off with an unbeaten 31. Ciaran McAssey was the pick of the Witherers’ bowlers, claiming 3/14 from six overs.
At KCC: HKCC Witherers 9/123 from 35 overs lost to KCC Saracens 7/125 from 32.5 overs by three wickets.

Saturday Championship Division 2
In Division two action, SCC Lancers, CCC Hung See and USRC/MCC all secured wins.

At Mission Road, USRC/MCC batted first against Laguna Gully and they amassed 8/208 from their 35 overs with Mohammad Awais hitting a splendid 111 not out. Umar Mohammad also hit 48 for USRC/MCC while Pranav Shah picked up 4/32 for Laguna Gully.

Laguna Gully’s reply never quite got going and they were eventually dismissed for 148 from 30.3 overs, with sundries the top score. Shan Sawar was the best of the nine USRC/MCC bowlers used, with 4/27 from 5 overs.
At Mission Road: USRC/MCC 8/208 from 35 overs beat Laguna Gully 148 from 30.3 overs by 60 runs.

At PKVR Park, DLSW Spartans opted to field first after winning the toss and they had early success as they reduced SCC Lancers to 3/16 and then 5/39 with Niaz Ali picking four wickets. But the Lancers’ lower order batsmen prospered and they finished on 208 all out off their 35 overs with skipper Prakash Chakravarti hitting 49 and Uday Shetty getting 57. Niaz finished with 4/18 from his seven over spell. Spartans’ lost both their opener’s cheaply but they progressed their score to 3/117 before Suresh Pandey fell for a team-high 40. After that, wickets fell regularly and Spartans were eventually all out for 180 in the 32nd over. Nitesh Talwar was the best of the Lancers bowlers with 4/22 while Uday Shetty completed a good all-round performance with 3/36.
At PKVR Park: SCC Lancers 207 from 35 overs beat DLSW Spartans 180 from 31.5 overs by 27 runs.

Shin-high long grass greeted the CCC Hung See and Pioneers teams at the Police Training College when they met to do battle in the ‘Chinese derby’. The teams did their best in the conditions with CCC Hung See maintaining their winning streak over Pioneers.

CCC Hung See won the toss and put Pioneers into bat. Skipper Damien Yee led the way with 41 at the top of the order as Pioneers reached 9/111 from their 35 overs. Ady Lee was the pick of the Hung See bowlers with 3/20 from his seven over spell. Adrian ‘Jet’ Lee got the Hung See innings off to a solid start and he and Adam Marrin posted 67 for the first wicket. Solid batting saw the Hung See innings pass 100 with no further loss but with two runs to win, ‘Jet’ was run out for 43. CCC Hung See cruised to victory in 24 overs to earn a bonus point.
At Police Training College: Pioneers CC 9/111 from 35 overs lost to CCC Hung See 3/112 from 24 overs by seven wickets.

Match Report: HK Scottish Kukris 12-10 HKCC

With both teams going into week two undefeated this promised to be a good game. And with the Kukris having home advantage they were confident of a win. Alas the game plan was swiftly thrown into disarray, as in quick succession, Captain Claire, second row Robyn, and full-back Ket came off injured. With the replacements still settling in, the forwards were seldom winning the ball, and that left the backs fighting a series of defensive moves. Half time couldn’t come soon enough for the Kukris, and as the referee blew the whistle for the break, the only real surprise was that the score was 0-5, HKCC having scored just one, unconverted, try.

The game resumed where it had left off, and HKCC scored another try, but again the conversion was unsuccessful. It seemed Kukris would have nothing to show for the day. But the forwards started to dominate the scrum and the backs held the defensive line. Then, with three minutes to go, and against the run of play, Man Ling sprinted up the pitch to score. The conversion was unsuccessful, bouncing back off the upright. But down by only 5 points the Kukris pushed up the pitch, determined to score again, until an infringement at the HKCC 22 snuffed out the attack. With the clock running down, it seemed it would be HKCC who would score, as they repeatedly assaulted the Kukris’s defense, that was now backed-up against their own try line. But a turnover allowed Kukris the ball, and a kick from behind the try line sent it up pitch. Giving chase and with support, Man Ling scored her second try under the posts, Karis Cheung converted and the referee blew the full time whistle. Final score 12-10 and an unlikely win for Hong Kong Scottish Kukris.

Women NL1: HK Scottish Kukris 12-10 HKCC
@ Shek Kip Mei Kick-off: 15:00
HK Scottish Kukris: Rachel Wong, Tiffany Tse, Hoi-Tung Jim, Idy Chung, Robyn Beese, Taro Yau, Jenny Yung, Andie Ma, Hau-Yi Chung, Karis Cheung, Man-Ling Hui, Anna Kam, Sau-Yi Yumi Fan, Claire Hunter, Ket Robinson,
Substitutes: Francis Lo, Berky Kong, Wun-Lo Chung, Wun Scarlet Ma, Yuen-Ting Fung
Try: Man-Ling Hui (2), Conversion: Karis Cheung
HKCC Ladies: Carolyn Champion, Wawa Li, Joanna Harvey, Mhari McLoughlin, Nobuko Oda, Wendy Sham, Cheryl Gourley, Lynda Nazer, Ashley Brooks, Tinley Wong, Zoe Wong, Lucy Thomson, Tissia Polycarpe, Brenda Chan, Diana Li
Substitutes: Isabella Rivers, Elane Lau, Serene Yee, Hoi Yi Li, Christy Ma, Margaret Chan
Try: Tissia Polycarpe, Ashley Brooks

Women’s Rugby Fixtures: 10 October, 2015

Match Report: HKCC 29-0 HKFC Fire

After a long, sweaty and tiring pre-season the start of the 2015/16 season has finally arrived. Head coach Alex Tarleton reports on HKCC season debut against HK Football Club Fire.

Match day started off in typical HKCC fashion with traumatic moments even before the season’s first whistle was blown – wrong buses, bus’s breaking down, replacements bus, no pitch booked and some tears (and that was just the coaches…). Finally a full squad of 23 arrived at KGV to warm-up, with time to spare.

With a T3 hoisted as Typhoon Mujigae brought wind and rain, nervous anticipation had the ladies fidgeting and keen to get the match and the season underway!

In the opening few minutes those nerves were very apparent, with HKCC resembling a herd of sheep following the ball around the field. However, a turnover saw summer signing Ashley Brooks make a quick break against the run of play to score a great solo effort from 30 yards out.

The opening score saw the ladies relax, become more settled and started to play the patterns we had been building on in pre season. Our shape was looking very good, our defence unbreakable and our scrum a great attacking platform.

Lynda Nazer having converted from a scrum half to a bustling back rower over the summer added two excellently worked tries, showing great determination to push over for an excellent brace.

The T3 was causing carnage at KGV with plastic bags and bottles invading the pitch, the rain hammering it down, but we went in 15-0 at the break.

The second half began a lot more tighter with HKFC regrouping and playing with a lot more ‘Fire’ as they tried to get back in the game. Both teams knew the next score was vitally important and CC withstood a lot of pressure from their rejuvenated opponents.

With the HKCC defence being pummeled, the ladies showed great character to withstand the pressure and keep FC from registering their first points of the season. Another turnover in the opposition half saw Ashley Brooks score again with Emma Chung adding the conversion to push the score out to 22-0, hopefully sealing the game with the bonus point.

We coaches were frantically signaling to keep up the hard work in defence as the Fire fly-half restarted the game, only for Tinley Wong to break through their defence straight from the kick off for a fifth try with Emma adding the conversion from in-front of the posts.

An excellent afternoon of rugby in testing conditions saw HKCC emerge with a 29-0 opening day bonus point win over HKFC Fire.

Celebrations then began on the side of the pitch and into the night….

Women of the match had to be both Brace Try scorers – Lynda Nazer and Ashley Brooks.

Women’s National League 1: HKCC 29-0 HKFC Fire
@KGV Kick-off: 16:30
HKCC: Kassie Chapel, Joan Yip, Jo Harvey, Katie Rowbottom, Lauren Petersen, Wendy, Lainie Man, Lynda Nazer, Ashley Brooks, Tinley Wong, Yana Dimitrova, Lucy Thomson, Tissia Polycarpe, Diana Li, Stephaine Zhang
Substitutes: Charlotte Berry, Mhairi McCloughlin, Carolyn Champion, Zoe Wong, Emma Chung, Wawa Li, Hoi Yi Li, Nobuko Oda
Tries: Lynda Nazer (2), Ashley Brooks (2), Tinley Wong. Conversions: Emma Chung (2)

Women’s Rugby Season 15/16 Preview

Women’s Premiership captains: Chan Long Sze Royce, Chloe Mak, Nam Ka Man, Jen Mackay, Jay Ho, Dora Kwok, Mok Ting Yan.

The women’s league structure, which was comprehensively overhauled for the 2014-15 season, sees further tweaks for the 15/16 season as the overall number of teams competing increases from 22-25 across three leagues. Despite the HKRU’s indifference to women’s rugby, it’s been the fastest growing area of the sport locally for several years and with Hong Kong’s women 7s winning in Qingdao recently there’s a lot of excitement ahead of the new season, which starts on 3 October.

The Premiership has grown from six to seven teams with HK Football Club Ice moving up to the top rung of local women’s rugby. The other participating Premiership teams are defending champions Valley Black, Gai Wu, USRC Tigers, Kowloon, SCAA Causeway Bay and Tai Po Dragons. Women’s Rugby Performance Manager Jo Hull and Women’s Rugby Development Manager Sam Feausi are looking to increase that to eight in the 2016/17 season.

One step below Premiership level, the National 15s League has grown by three teams to 11 with HK Scottish, SCAA Causeway Bay 3rds and Revolution joining the competition this season. The National 10s League will feature six teams and continues its role as a bridge for new and younger players looking to integrate into 15-aside competition.

The main change to this season’s competition is the introduction of a new internal representative competition: the Women’s Rugby Super Series – designed to bridge the gap between domestic rugby and the national XVs set-up.

“The Super Series will feature our top 66 players from the domestic league. These players will be split into three Barbarian sides which will play against each other, effectively adding a component of representative rugby apart from the domestic league and just below the national setup. The goal is to better prepare and help transition players to full representative rugby,” said Sam Feausi.

Feausi added that, “The Super Series will give coaches and selectors an opportunity to look at our best players and test combinations with an eye on the coming international season. The teams will primarily be drawn from the Premiership with selectors identifying any players from other competitions that we believe have what it takes to represent the National Team. The Super Series will give more opportunities to the best players in the Premiership to play at an even higher level.”

“We are focused on introducing more of a performance aspect into our women’s club system this season. The Premiership is the pinnacle of Women’s rugby and we want it to be geared towards high performance, as we are ultimately targeting qualification for Women’s Rugby World Cup in future.” said Jo Hull.

The three leagues promise to serve up some incredible rugby with defending champions Valley Black and perennial contenders Gai Wu shaping up as the favourites once again in the Premiership race. Gai Wu have 11 players involved with the national sevens team, Valley Black have nine. SCAA Causeway Bay is the only club to field a team in all three of the senior woman’s competitions.

“This is set to be the biggest club woman’s competition we have ever had in Hong Kong,” said Feausi. “With 25 teams across three highly competitive leagues it will be interesting to see who will be pushing hard for a place in the Premiership and spots in the Super Series teams. On the other end of the scale, we will be monitoring how successful clubs are at introducing beginners and less experienced players to rugby and transitioning them from National 10s to higher levels of competition.”

The Women’s Premiership will kick off on 3 October as part of the HKRU Super Saturday league launch at Kings Park. The National 15’s and Women’s 10s also kick-off this weekend and you can find the complete fixture list here.

Source HKRU, image courtesy of HKRU

Women’s Rugby Fixtures – 3 October, 2015

HK Cricket Match Reports: Saturday, 26 September 2015

A heavy downpour in the mid-afternoon affected all Saturday Championship matches but it was a credit that teams achieved results in a couple of matches after waiting out the rain break.

Saturday Championship Division 1
At Hong Kong Cricket Club, Nomads suffered a rare defeat at the hands of fellow HKCC team Witherers in a match reduced to 21 overs per innings.

Batting first after winning the toss, the Nomads innings was interrupted after 16.2 overs for rain, after the resumption of play, the score progressed to 6/161 from 21 overs. Top scorers were Stephen Hawinkels with 48 and Paul Watkins with 31. In reply, Witherers’ Andrew Jacobs hit 74 as they raced to victory in 18 overs for the loss of four wickets.

The match was one of a number of games played at HKCC over the long weekend to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the HKCC’s move to the Wong Nai Chung Gap venue.
At HKCC: HKCC Nomads 6/161 from 21 overs lost to HKCC Witherers 4/165 from 18 overs by six wickets (match reduced to 21 overs per innings).

There was a derby match at Kowloon Cricket Club where Crusaders faced Saracens. Unfortunately, the heavy rain curtailed proceedings after 17 overs with Saracens in a spot of bother at 6/60, and no further play was possible. Damian Kelleher claimed 4/16 for Crusaders.
At KCC: KCC Saracens 6/60 from 17 overs drew with KCC Crusaders.

There was a similar outcome in the match at Mission Road between DLSWCC Sarjan and CCC Jing Sun. Rain forced play to stop in the ninth over and no further play was possible after the bowlers’ run-ups and outfield were soaked. The match was abandoned with CCC Jing Sun’s score on 1/37.
At Mission Road: CCC Jing Sun 1/37 from 8.5 overs drew with DLSWCC Sarjan.

Saturday Championship Division 2
A result was achieved at PKVR Park where Lamma defeated Kai Tak five wickets. Kai Tak batted first and had totalled 5/87 from 17.4 overs when the rain stopped play. Upon a resumption of play, Lamma were given 17 overs to chase down a revised score of 84, which they achieved with five balls to spare.
At PKVR Park: Kai Tak CC 5/87 from 17.4 overs lost to Lamma CC 4/84 from 16.1 overs by five wickets (target 18 from 17 overs).

Rugby Union Domestic League Structure Changed to Support National Team

The Hong Kong Rugby Union has announced the schedule for the upcoming HKRU Domestic League. While similar on the surface to last season’s competition, the 2015/16 season ushers in some profound and long-term changes in the structure of local rugby.

Primary amongst these changes is the decision made jointly by the HKRU and its member clubs to ring-fence the Men’s Premiership around the six existing Premiership clubs at both Premiership and Premiership A levels for the coming three seasons.

Valley RFC, HKCC, Hong Kong Football Club, Hong Kong Scottish, Kowloon and USRC Tigers retain their Premiership spots for the coming season and will maintain this status for three years.

Dai Rees, General Manager, Rugby Performance at the HKRU, commented on the changes saying, “The objective is to ensure a stable competition that is structured around two performance leagues, Premiership and Premiership A, and supported by a development and community league structure that will ultimately contribute to the national team and high performance rugby in Hong Kong.

“These changes are a culmination of months of consultation with local clubs to secure their buy-in. As a result the final structure places significant emphasis on establishing clear playing levels, with Hong Kong’s elite level rugby ring-fenced around the clubs participating in the Premiership and Premiership A leagues,” Rees said.

The Premiership and Premiership A leagues will now mirror each other with club fixtures played at the same location each week. The new structure will allow the Premiership teams in these leagues to support each other on any given league weekend and maximize the development of their performance players.

Below Premiership A level, National League 1 will become a feeder system and development structure grooming potential high performance players who aspire to play Premiership rugby.

National League 1 will feature nine teams, headlined by Tin Shui Wai Pandas, who voluntarily relinquished their Premiership A spot to support the wider objectives of Hong Kong Rugby.

Discovery Bay Pirates, SCAA Causeway Bay, Gai Wu, University Wizards, Valley Mavericks, PLA and two Hong Kong Football Club sides round out the National League 1 competition this season.

The Championship Club league has also been revamped for 2015/16 with nine clubs: City RFC, Discipline Services XV, East Kowloon, Gai Wu Crusaders, Kowloon Barbarians, Revolution, Tai Po Dragons, Tin Shui Wai 2nd XV, and USRC Tigers Development taking part.

The modified Championship Club structure sees that league now highly focused on serving as an entry point and breeding ground for Chinese players, with all teams required to include a minimum of 14 ethnic Chinese players in each match day squad.

Following the amendments to the structure, the National and Championship Club leagues are now clearly identified as development competitions entering the season, with the aim to establish partnerships and mutually sustainable links with Premiership teams and to provide a clear and direct player pathway through to performance level rugby in Hong Kong.

National League and Championship Clubs sides will work closely with the HKRU to identify potential performance players. A new dual registration system will allow Premiership clubs to register and develop these players with nominated players allowed to play at both levels in a given season while officially remaining with their mother club.

Already there are signs of progress with U20s stand-out Eric Kwok Pak Nga, who developed his game at City RFC, now seconded to USRC Tigers in a move that has greatly hastened his development. Kwok was named the 2014/15 HKRU Development Player of the Year and is currently in the elite rugby sevens athlete programme at the Hong Kong Sports Institute, having represented Hong Kong in the Junior World Rugby Trophy and as vice captain for the men’s U20s sevens team which defended its Asian sevens title in August.

HKRU league competition rules continue to emphasise the selection and development of local talent with the Premiership rules requiring 12 of the 22 or 23 players selected (depending on the team’s front row configuration) for a league fixture to be eligible to represent Hong Kong.

The HKRU will continue to work in partnership with its member clubs to identify future strategic directions after the coming three seasons as it continues to refine and strengthen its development structures.

Complimenting the league’s move towards enhancing the stability of domestic Rugby and further preparing Hong Kong players for international competition, the HKRU will be announcing several other transformative development initiatives in the coming weeks.

Super Saturday marks 2015/16 Season Start
The Premiership will be played over 15 rounds with break for the Asia Rugby Sevens Olympic Qualifiers on 7-8 November at the Hong Kong Stadium and for the Cup of Nations (13-21 Nov) at Hong Kong Football Club when Hong Kong will face off with Russia, Portugal and Zimbabwe.

The 2015/16 HKRU season will kick off with a Super Saturday on 3 October, gathering all six Premiership and Premiership A teams for a triple trio of rugby excitement at King’s Park. Admission is free.

Towards the business end of the season, a quarterfinals competition will be held with the top two teams entering the quarterfinals (27 February) receiving a first round bye. The semifinals will be held on 5 March with the Grand Final on 12 March.