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Hong Kong Cup of Nations – 13, 17, and 21 November 2015

A new four team round-robin tournament will make it’s debut this November, when Portugal, Russia and Zimbabwe will travel to Hong Kong for the 15-a-side Hong Kong Cup of Nations. The World Rugby-sanctioned competition will feature six matches played over three days.

HKRFU General Manager of Performance Rugby Dai Rees is enthusiastic about the new tournament, saying, “We have been working with World Rugby for a number of years to formalise a competition for Performance 2 and 3 level unions to ensure that we play the number of annual matches recommended by World Rugby for countries that aspire to reach the Rugby World Cup. To reach the recommended seven to ten annual fixtures, we need to combine our Asia Rugby Championships campaign – which is four matches in the spring – with touring or bringing in international teams for home tests in November” said Rees.

Russia is the highest ranked team competing in the Cup of Nations, currently 19th in the World Rugby standings. Portugal is ranked 23 and Zimbabwe is 28. Hong Kong moved up two spots to 25th in the world after finishing second in the Asia Rugby Championship.

“The teams invited to participate in the Cup of Nations are all ranked between 18 and 28 in the world, providing broadly competitive fixtures for Hong Kong. All four teams, including Hong Kong, advanced deep into the 2015 Rugby World Cup qualification process but ultimately didn’t qualify. We want to play against teams just outside of the Rugby World Cup rankings, which is about the top 16 or 18 teams in the world, to engage in meaningful and competitive fixtures,” Rees added.

“From a scheduling standpoint, the rugby calendar will look quite good for Hong Kong with the Cup of Nations giving us another opportunity for intense competition at the beginning of our domestic season and six months on from the Asia Rugby Championship” Rees continued. “We want to push and pressurise ourselves over the coming few years. Having three teams of the calibre of Russia, Portugal and Zimbabwe coming here six months after the Asia Rugby Championship window will help us maintain intensity as we increasingly focus on our high-performance 15s programmes,” said Rees who sees these opportunities as really important for Hong Kong in preparation for the qualification campaign for Rugby World Cup 2019 in Japan.

Match schedules and venues will be announced in due course.

Lets hope that a similar women’s tournament can be arranged on the same dates!

Asia Rugby Championship 2015: South Korea 37-38 Hong Kong

A last-gasp try from Salom Yiu Kam-shing earned Hong Kong a narrow 38-37 victory over 13-man South Korea in Incheon on Saturday to keep alive their hopes of finishing second in the inaugural Asia Rugby Championship.

Winger Yiu crossed over in extra-time to score his second try of the match under the posts and the successful conversion by Niall Rowark enabled Hong Kong to snatch victory over their opponents who had played the last 30 minutes with 14 men after a red-card was shown to tighthead prop Kim Kwang-sik for a shoulder charge on John Aikman.

The home team finished with 13 men on the park when centre Kim Nam-uk was sin-binned for an off-the-ball incident and the two-man advantage gave Hong Kong a renewed burst of hope as they grabbed their chance with Hong Kong lock forward Adrian Griffiths delivering the try-scoring pass to Yiu who covered 40 metres to score.

https://youtu.be/VxjuJteGe7s

Korea v Hong Kong Highlights ARC 2015 Week 5 (https://youtu.be/VxjuJteGe7s)

“It was a courageous performance from the guys. We made too many errors and dug a hole for ourselves but they showed a lot of heart to fight back,” said pleased head coach Andy Hall. “That last try certainly changed my post-match talk. But it was a lot of character which got us through in the end,” Hall added.

Korea, who had won the opening leg 33-26 last month at the Hong Kong Football Club, looked well on the way to securing another win as they stretched their 19-12 lead at halftime to 29-12. Roving flanker and captain Kim Jeong-min grabbed a brace in the first half, his second coming with Hong Kong down to 14 men with prop Jack Parfitt in the sin-bin for a shoulder charge. Korean right winger Bin Jegal also scored from a snappy move by the backs but Hong Kong reduced the deficit with Yiu going over from close range after taking a lovely inside pass from fly-half Ben Rimene.

A driving maul led to a try from flanker Toby Fenn as Hong Kong finished the first half on the ascendancy and trailing just by seven points. The second half began disastrously for the visitors when a loose pass from Lachlan Chubb was intercepted by Korean left winger Chang Yong-heung who ran 70 metres to score untouched.

Korea lost prop Kim Kwang-sik to a red card ten minutes into the second half but that did not deter the rest of the forwards who turned on the pressure giving fly-half Oh Youn-hyung plenty of time to knock over a drop-goal from 20 metres out.

Hong Kong cut the deficit to 29-17 when Tyler Spitz, who had come in for centre Jamie Hood in the first half, crossed over but Korea kept play inside the Hong Kong 22 and went further ahead, 32-17 with a penalty. Lock Paul Dwyer scored Hong Kong’s fourth try to cut the deficit again, 32-24, but the feisty Koreans refused to lie down with centre Kim Nam-uk going over to stretch the lead to 37-24.

Hong Kong skipper Hewson who had been in the thick of the action all day, gave his team renewed hope when he went over with two minutes on the clock to make it a one score match, 37-31. And when Kim Nam-uk was sin-binned right at the death, it gave Hong Kong a fresh burst of energy and they kept moving the ball around in the last passage of play before Yiu spotted the gap to score the winning try.

“The guys showed a lot of heart to win that match,” Hall said.

Both Hong Kong and Korea have eight points – Korea earning two bonus points despite the loss for scoring four tries or more and finishing within a seven-point margin – and the second-placed spot will only be decided after next Saturday’s final encounter between Hong Kong and Japan. Japan who have already been crowned champions will be favourites to remain unbeaten in the competition having beaten Hong Kong 41-0 in Tokyo. “Second-place will be down to points differential. But right now we are not thinking of that. We just want to savour this result,” Hall added.

Hong Kong have a +29 points differential on South Korea but will need to work hard to maintain that edge when the ever-dangerous Japan visit Aberdeen Stadium on Saturday (16.00, 23 May).

That match will be preceded by the final match in the Asia Rugby Women’s Championship when Hong Kong host Japan at Aberdeen (13.00). Kazakhstan lead the ARWC on 6 points over Japan on 5 points but Japan have a match in hand and an away win in Hong Kong would see them claim Asia’s women’s fifteens title next weekend.

Rugby Sevens Asia Regional Qualifier for Rio 2016 Olympic Games – 7-8 November, 2015

Rugby sevens will make its Olympic Games debut on 6 August, 2016 after the Rio 2016 Organising Committee released the daily competition schedule to mark 500 days to go.

The men’s and women’s competitions will both feature 12 teams. World Rugby has announced that the top four teams in the respective men’s and women’s World Rugby Sevens Series standings will qualify automatically – Fiji, South Africa and New Zealand have qualified with England or Australia set to join them. Brazil as hosts will also feature in both tournaments.

A men’s and a women’s team will qualify from each of the six regional Olympic qualification tournaments, that will take place between June and November 2015. The men’s Asia Rugby Sevens Regional Qualifier for Rio 2016 Olympic Games will take place in Hong Kong on the weekend of the 7-8 November.

The Asia women’s representative will be decided via a two leg qualifier – the first leg in Hong Kong on the 7-8 November and the second leg at the Tokyo Women’s Sevens tournament on 28-29 November 2015.

The 12th and final place in both the men’s and women’s Olympic Games rugby sevens competitions will be determined via a repechage tournament which will take place before the end of June 2016 (date and location to be confirmed).

Tickets of Rio 2016 can be purchased China Travel Service (Hong Kong) Limited – the authorised ticket reseller for Hong Kong. Visit the Rio 2016 website for more information – www.rio2016.com/spectators.

Hong Kong Cup of Nations

The Hong Kong Cup of Nations features the national teams of Portugal, Russia, Zimbabwe and Hong Kong who will play for a round-robin competition featuring six matches played over three match days.

Hong Kong Cup of Nations
Date: 13. 17, 21 November, 2015
Venue: tbc
Tickets: tbc

Hong Kong Cup of Nations

The Hong Kong Cup of Nations features the national teams of Portugal, Russia, Zimbabwe and Hong Kong who will play for a round-robin competition featuring six matches played over three match days.

Hong Kong Cup of Nations
Date: 13. 17, 21 November, 2015
Venue: tbc
Tickets: tbc

Hong Kong Cup of Nations

The Hong Kong Cup of Nations features the national teams of Portugal, Russia, Zimbabwe and Hong Kong who will play for a round-robin competition featuring six matches played over three match days.

Hong Kong Cup of Nations
Date: 13. 17, 21 November, 2015
Venue: tbc
Tickets: tbc

Hong Kong 18th at Touch Rugby World Cup

The 2015 Touch World Cup has come to an end in Coff’s Harbour in Australia, and Hong Kong’s first ever participation has ended with an extremely creditable 18th ranking in the Mixed Open Division with a record of played 9, won 4, lost 4 and 1 draw – full results below. Although the tournament was hit by torrential rain storms which left pitches resembling swimming pools on more than one occasion, it was a great experience for this young side who will now look forward with greater confidence to the next World Cup which will be held in Malaysia. The Mixed Open Cup Final was contested by traditional touch powerhouses New Zealand and Australia, with the hosts taking the honours and the World Cup trophy.

Hong Kong’s campaign got off to a tough start as they faced the mighty English side, but although it was a steep learning curve they managed to get on the score sheet, with vice captain Lai Yiu Pang getting in the history books with Hong Kong’s first ever World Cup try! After the completion of the pool games the team were ranked 3rd in their group and moved into division three, where they next faced 6 games against Chile, Middle East, Germany, Holland, China and Italy. A record of 3 wins, 1 draw, and 2 losses meant a return match against Italy on the final day’s play-offs, and a convincing win left Hong Kong ranked 18th at the conclusion of their first World Cup adventure.

“Even against the big name opponents our team wasn’t overawed and played with aggression and increasing confidence, and thanks to our preparation our energy and fitness levels were of a good standard,” explained coach Zanio Yong. “We achieved a ranking of 18th on our debut, but with seven different try scorers throughout the competition I feel it showed we played as a team rather than individuals, and I’m very proud of all the squad members. Our thanks to our sponsors ANZ as well as the HK Touch Association and the HKRFU for making this possible.”

Day 1 – 29th April
England 8 v Hong Kong 1 (LAI Yiu-pang)
USA 6 v Hong Kong 2 (AU Chi-wai, NG Chok-shing)

Day 2 – 30th April
Chile 6 v Hong Kong 2 (WAN Kwok-kwong, LAI Siu-hong)

Day 4 – 2nd May
Middle East 1 v Hong Kong 1 (KWOK Kak-ah)
Germany 0 v Hong Kong 3 (LAM Ka-lok, NG Chok-shing x2)
Netherlands 2 v Hong Kong 3 (LAM Ka-lok, WAN Kwok-kwong x2)
China 2 v Hong Kong 1 (NG Chok-shing)
Italy 0 v Hong Kong 1 (LAI Yiu-pang)

Day 5 – 3rd May
Play-off
Italy 2 v Hong Kong 5 (FONG Chun-sin x2, LAI Yiu-pang x2, WAN Kwok-kwong)

Hong Kong final World Cup ranking – 18th

Full results www.touchworldcup.com

Asia Rugby Championship 2015: Japan 41-0 Hong Kong

Hong Kong didn’t win the war, leave alone the battles, yet head coach Andy Hall was pleased that his side had made progress by claiming “mini-victories” over Japan in the Asia Rugby Championship in Tokyo on Saturday.

“This was a much-better performance than against South Korea last week. We won quite a few mini-victories unfortunately we didn’t have enough of those mini-victories to affect the outcome,” Hall said.

Japan ran in seven tries and kept a clean sheet to register a 41-0 victory over Asia’s number two team, Hong Kong. After keeping their unbeaten record intact Japan stormed to the top of the three-team standings with 12 points. South Korea is second with six points while Hong Kong are in third place with two points.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui2cYH6a0Kc&feature=youtu.be

Japan v Hong Kong Highlights – ARC 2015 week 3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui2cYH6a0Kc&feature=youtu.be)

All three teams have played two matches with South Korea travelling to Fukuoka, Japan for Round 4 next Saturday (9 May).

“We wanted a reaction from last week’s (poor) performance against Korea and we got that today. Unfortunately we didn’t have a platform to exert pressure on Japan. We didn’t win enough ball and when we did, we failed to keep hold of it. When this happens it makes life difficult,” Hall said.

Hong Kong, who began with lock Adam Butterfield making his debut, troubled Japan in the scrum but couldn’t hold their own in the lineouts allowing their opponents to dominate.

But it took 17 minutes for Japan to breach the line against a determined and dogged Hong Kong defence with winger Akihito Yamada completing a quickly taken tap to cross over by the left corner flag.

It didn’t open up the floodgates with Hong Kong slowing the game down cleverly in a stop-start affair resulting in a large crown of nearly 9,000 at the Prince Chichibu Stadium remaining subdued.

Japan led 19-0 at the break with two more tries from centre Karne Hesketh and lock forward Luke Thompson with fullback Ayumu Goromaru converting two.

Hong Kong lost openside flanker Matt Lamming to the sin-bin soon after the game resumed and in his absence Japan scored twice with centre Yu Tamura and Yamada completing his brace.

Midway through the second half Hong Kong was reduced to 14 men again when winger Charlie Higson-Smith failed to roll away from a breakdown. Japan again capitalised with No.8 Ryu Holani scoring from a five-metre scrum before substitute winger Yoshikazu Fujita completed the victory-march by dotting down near the right corner flag.

“We showed good intent today,’” said Japan head coach Eddie Jones. “But our handling let us down”.

Source: HKRTU; Editing: bc magazine