Tag: Kowloon

Gai Wu Falcons Beat HKFC Ice 32-5

Gai Wu start the new Women’s Premiership season in fine fettle according to Coach Lai Yiu Pang with strong competition for places from many of the women who were playing for the Gai Wu Fawkes in WNL1 last season pressing for spots in the Falcons squad.

The Falcon’s couldn’t have got off to better start against HKFC Ice with Eddie scoring a simple unconverted try in the fourth minute. Ice put together perhaps their best period of play in the match during the first ten minutes and after a prolonged period of pressure Rachel crossed the line to bring the scores level at 5-5 after 10 minutes.

There’s a competitive hardness to Gai Wu and their response to HKFC’s score was immediate. A beautiful side-step by Tina saw her shatter the Ice defence to finish off a flowing move. A couple of minute later and a lovely hand-off by Bernie as she sprints down the left sideline allows Maxson to score the Falcons’ third try, 17-5.

HKFC are creating some small breaks but handling errors and penalties at the breakdown are hampering their attacks. When they can string the phases together Ice look threatening and only some fine last ditch Gai Wu defence just before the halftime hooter prevents HKFC scoring a second try.

Gai Wu though are comfortably controlling the game with some of their young players really impressing before National Coach Jo Hull who was at Happy Valley to watch both games. Jasmine especially catching Hull’s eye as she offered the Falcons real pace and penetration on the outside in only her second season playing rugby.

As the second half gets underway and it’s all Gai Wu as they pound the Ice try line, it’s backs to wall defending from HKFC but eventually the Falcons forwards get a maul together and force their way over the line as Joyce Kam-chi Chui touches down for a fourth try, 22-5. From the kick-off the Falcons are back on the attack stringing the phases together and Maxson soon touches down for her second try of the afternoon, 27-5.

The two quick tries see HKFC visible wilt, the game is gone and there’s a lot of time in the half left. Megan tries to lift Ice with a strong run from inside her 22. As she’s tackled by CKY her flailing arm punches the Gai Wu player on the temple who crumples under the blow. It looked completely accidental and thankfully after some treatment a dazed CKY sporting a golf ball sized shiner walks groggily from the field.

The injury break combined with the heat and humidity has sapped the intensity from the game and with their scrum in total control the only question is how many points do Gai Wu want to score. Rachel Prolas almost has her first try of the game but is stopped just short of the line by some resolute tackling.

Ice’s new coach Royce Chan Leong Sze, fresh from her Rugby World Cup experience is champing to get on the pitch to help her team, wrings the changes as her charges melt under the Gai Wu pressure which see Shun Lee burst free to score the Falcons sixth try, 32-5.

The changes work and bring a bit of solidity back to the HKFC’s defence as they make a few mini breaks to prevent Gai Wu, who don’t help themselves with a few spilled passes, from spending the remainder of the match camped inside Football Club’s 22.

Coach Lai uses the final quarter to give game time to several of the emerging Fawkes players. There’s an impressive camaraderie and desire among the Gai Wu players with everyone pushing each other to succeed and do well. The club’s ability to continually unearth new talent bodes well for the future of the local game and the national team. Talking to the players on the sideline during and after the match there’s a unified desire for the new season – Beat Valley!

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/Gai-Wu-Falcons-v-HKFC-Ice-Happy-Valley-23-September-2017/i-mGHJZPw

Valley Black Beat USRC Tigers 39-3

Valley Black began their quest for a fourth consecutive Premiership title and a fourth unbeaten season against USRC Tigers as dusk descended on Happy Valley. Valley began the game on the front foot with new signing Aroha Savage, the number 8 who last month won the Women’s Rugby World Cup with the Black Ferns, the focus of much of the play as new Player Coach Bella Milo pushed her players to use the width of the pitch. Valley’s fast start paid dividends in the fifth minute when Savage touched down for a try on debut that owed much to her will to score.

USRC in their new strip of almost completely yellow shirts, worked hard but some individual errors and poor work at the breakdown allowed Valley to strengthen their hold on the game as Bella Milo touched down for a second try on 20 mins which Zoe Smith converted, 12-0 to Valley. The Tigers really had yet to get into the game and with Valley spending increasing amounts of the game inside the USRC 22, a third try soon arrived.

It was backs to the pen for the Tigers, but their defence was solid and a magnificent break out run from Winnie Siu along the far touchline and into the Valley 22 had Tigers supporters hollering. A resulting Valley infringement almost on the touchline offered the chance for the Tigers to kick for the corner and look to score from the resulting line-out. Instead looking to get some points on the board, Charlotte Mryans pointed to the posts and slotted an absolutely beautiful struck penalty between the uprights for the Tigers first points of the season, 17-3.

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Valley came right back though and camped themselves inside the Tigers 22 under such intense pressure there was little surprise among those watching when the Black forwards used their power to create a second try for Savage under the posts which Smith dutifully converted 24-3.

The Tigers made a final foray before the half time whistle and some slick passing saw them inside the 22 but they couldn’t come away with any points. Valley easily in charge and without having to do too much.

Stern words from their stand in coach during the break saw the Tigers up their game at the start of the second half and USRC’s physically , commitment and solid defence blunted the Valley attack for long periods during the third quarter but the humidity and the effort were taking it’s toll on theTigers as injuries mounted. Despite the stoic defence, Valley’s back were having more of ball and starting to string their passes together. A fine line break by Jade saw her almost score, but for a fine try saving Tiger tackle which keep the score as it was at the half. Moments late Jade thought she had scored with a 50m sprint down the near touchline only for the try to be ruled out for a pinkie toe in touch.

The Tigers grabbed the resulting line-out and worked the ball out of their 22 only to concealed a penalty for offside. Quickly taken by Valley it almost sees them to the try line. As Valley ring the changes the Tigers work their way into the Valley 22 and the backs create a lovely overlap and look certain to score in the near corner, but the ball is slow and Valley’s last ditch tackle saves a certain try.

Fatigue and fitness are starting to tell. A break down the near side by Jade, is followed by a surging line break through the centre of the Tigers defence Bella Milo who releases Jade for the first score of the second half.

Soon to be followed by another as Riva Bril breaks out courtesy of a strong handoff and sets up Karen So for Valley’s sixth try.

Aroha Savage completes her superb debut by charging through the heart of a tiring defence leaving a swathe of Tigers on the ground as searches for her hat-trick. A slick handoff brings the backs into the attack and quick hands along the line sees Jade score in the corner for her second try. 39-3.

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And that’s how it finished, final score 39-3. USRC pushed Valley hard in a physical encounter, but never really looked like scoring a try. Tigers President Marco Cassandro commenting that he was proud of how his team played. “It’s the first game of the season, we’ve got some new faces and a really strong and positive feeling within the club about what we can achieve this season. We’re not at Valley’s level yet, but we’re progressing well”.

On the Valley sidelines new signing Black Fern Rawinia Everitt whose assisting with the coaching as she recovers from injury said the she was impressed with the Valley squad, “I want to bring some of the All Black rugby culture to the club, to ensure that players have the desire and passion to wear the shirt, and what it means and what you have to bring to wear the shirt!”

Women’s Premiership, Opening Day Preview

After the excitement of the World Cup, domestic rugby returns with the start of the women’s 2017-18 season. The Premiership has been expanded to eight teams, with National League 1 winners Tai Po Dragons promoted, and a new fixture structure created.

The HKRU is calling the new structure “innovative and designed to boost the competitiveness of games, the skills of individuals and the strength of teams”. In the first half of the season, up to Christmas, each of the eight teams plays all others before splitting to a Premiership of the four top-placed teams, and a Premiership Development league of the lower four.

We’ll be blunt and state that the new structure is crap. Yes you’ll not see 100 point blowout results – but as the World Cup showed, you improve by playing better players and teams. Playing the same players more often in the mini leagues does not help you improve. Last year you could visibly see teams and players strengthen through the season.

Also if anything it reinforces the problem of players playing a person because they know their weaknesses rather than the game situation. With no disrespect to the World Cup squad even we watching fans knew exactly what the HK team and each player would do in each situation. The tries HK scored at the World Cup were when a player did something a little different – used their skill to play the game situation not follow a pattern.

The Premiership winners secure the Women’s Premiership League Cup, while in the ‘Development’ half, the Premiership Development Challenge Trophy, which will start the year in the hands of the fifth-placed team and then pass to any team that beats them, and so on.

The end of season Grand Championships will feature all eight teams, playing quarter-finals, semis, and the Grand Final. In addition as last year there will be three Super Series games featuring sides drawn from a mix of players from across the club teams.

At the end of the season, the lowest-placed team in the Premiership Development will be relegated to National League 1, while the winners of that league will be promoted.

On the pitch, all eyes will be on Valley Black who enter the fray off the back of a third straight unbeaten season, 42 consecutive matches won. In charge of the Valley Premiership team this season is former Samoan national captain and Hong Kong national backs coach, Bella Milo – one of two women coaches in the Premiership.

“We had a camp last week in Sheung Shui, with the aim of bringing both our teams closer. Our aim is to promote off-the-field relationships. We want to develop a lot of our group and will give more players game time in the first half of the season,” Milo revealed.

There are no major withdrawals from the squad, but a couple of big names have been added. Aroha Savage, Black Ferns World Cup winner will play at number 8. Rawinia Everitt, a former Black Fern, arrives with an injury that will keep her from playing at the start of the season, but affords her extra time to settle in as Assistant Coach.

Milo said, “Everyone is eager to get playing, putting into practice some of the details we’ve focused on pre-season. The league is looking a lot better. I expect higher intensity levels and a good competition.”

Gai Wu Falcons will be looking change the pattern of recent seasons where their only losses were to Valley, and are confident to go one better having reduced the gap against their arch-rivals last season, from a 28-3 thumping early on to gritty, tight contests in the season-closing league game (8-7) and Grand Championship final (15-7)

The team has seen a lot of changes in personnel, which, says coach Lai Yiu Pang, is why they are running three teams, “to press development, so that players can come through, challenge each other and the seniors. It helps to keep the club strong.”

Injuries from national duty to Christy Cheng and Lau Sze Wa, combined with the absence of Hong Kong sevens players training for the Asian series, leave Lai working hard to put out the team he wants early on.

Charmaine Da Costa, who has been playing for the club in NL2/NL3, has caught the attention of the national sevens set-up. And teenage fly half Jasmine Fung, who only joined last season, put in such impressive hit-out performances last Saturday that Lai will use her to replace veteran Lee Tsz Ting, who is focusing on her sevens game.

Others moving up from Gai Wu’s lower levels to the first team include flanker Justine Chan; prop Cherry Ng; and scrumhalf Wong Suet Ying. Ng will be making a big jump after playing NL3 rugby last season.

“The first half of the season will be a good chance to look at the whole squad and our bench depth. I hope to build a squad of 30 or even 35 players. The league is about consistent performance throughout the season and in the more challenging second half we will need that depth,” observes Lai.

USRC Tigers ambitious to improve on last season’s third place are now coached by Fan Shun Kei. A former Hong Kong national half-back, who played for Tigers from age 13, right through his club career and has recently been coaching the national Men’s U20 Sevens side.

“The key challenges for us are to develop a performance culture across the whole squad and enhance the basic skill sets for those players,” said Fan.

The squad features a crop of new players, including a couple of capable 19-year-olds from New Zealand, prop Abbey Rivers and fly half Sarah Swinbanks. Fan enthuses that, “Abbey offers some hard ball carrying and physicality, and Sarah can use her experience to direct the games and enhance our kicking game.”

Fan is looking to rotate in players from lower levels to give them experience. As the season kicks off, injuries and absences are making that a necessity.

“The hardest thing at the moment is losing some key players to sevens duty. Our objective for the first half is to finish in the top four so I’m trying to promote some of the new players to give them a taste of Premiership rugby.”

There’s also a new player-coach at HKFC Ice as Royce Chan Leong Sze just back from playing in the World Cup takes charge. Chan says she’s still fired up by the experience and eager to apply with Ice what she learned there.

HKFC is in somewhat of a rebuild, with new players arriving from other clubs and overseas. Chan will be playing alongside national teammate Rose Hopewell-Fong who’ll also take on a coaching role.

Newly joined from Australia, where she played at national sevens level, is Rachel Crothers. Two quality players are also back from injury. Rachel Fong (sister of Rose) is developing as a fly half, as she returns from 12 months of enforced layoff, while Fion Got is back after nearly two seasons off with injury.

“We have some new players from varied backgrounds and my challenge is to bring everyone together, and meld their playing styles,” Chan says.

SCAA Causeway Bay Phoenix have a new coach as Chris Lin takes over a team that has finished fifth for the last seasons and looks to guide the upwards.

Jonathan Ho, Kowloon Ladies coach, believes his team can do much better than last season’s sixth place finish, having been competitive in games against most of their opponents. The squad is essentially unchanged, although injuries to key players including forward Christine Gordon and centre Lily Chau will make the early games tougher.

One new player is Stephanie Ching, an exciting youngster who has been training with the national sevens side. Joining the coaching team is Ho’s brother, former Hong Kong fifteens and sevens player Ben Ho, who will take responsibility for the forwards.

Ho believes in Kowloon’s ability. “We are competitive. Not so much needs to change – the players just need the confidence and belief that they can beat the likes of Football Club and Causeway Bay,” he said.

In their debut Premiership season City Sparkle fought hard and showed they could challenge for wins, but ended up bottom of the table. In their second season they look to consolidate. Coach Kai Hang Fung was delighted with his side’s performance in pre-season games against Tai Po and Gai Wu, which he said “showed that we’ve improved and are better at handling pressure.”

“We have boosted the squad size with some girls from NL2. We now have the numbers to stay strong through the back of the season, when injuries mount. That really cost us last season.”

City’s second team took out the NL2 championship last season, offering a pipeline of players who know all about winning.

As 2016/17 Women’s National League 1 champs, Tai Po Dragon Ladies return to the Premiership as the eighth team. The side played in the inaugural Premiership season 2015/16 and will look to offer feisty competition under the tutelage of coach Tsang Hing Hung, a former Hong Kong international and a serving police officer.

Women’s Rugby Fixtures – 23 September, 2017

Women’s Rugby Coverage – Crowdfunding Campaign

The Hong Kong women’s team were wonderful and committed at the recent Women’s Rugby World Cup, and now comes a new league campaign.

Over the last few seasons bc magazine has offered post match reports on women’s league games. These have been written by a wide variety of people including fans, players and coaches.

This season we’d like to try something a little more ambitious, match reports written by freelance journalists in English and Chinese and circulated to local and international media for publishing free of charge.

The idea is to raise awareness of women’s rugby in Hong Kong. Newspapers and websites are always looking for content – we’ll provide it to them free of charge.

Teams and sponsors can also use the match reports on their social media channels and websites to further enhance awareness.

We’re looking to crowdfund a team of freelance writers to create professional matches reports in English and Chinese.

For each Womens Premiership match we’ll look to have:
Match report: 400 words in English and Chinese
Match report format: photo, match report with quotes, team lists, try scorers
Photos: Just from a phone and uploaded to twitter, instagram, facebook etc
Video: We’ll also try to do a bit of video interviewing but the initial focus will be on match reports.

We hope to be able to attract freelance writers for around $500/ match and will offer a bonus of $1,000 if they cover 10 matches during a season.
We’re looking for bilingual Saturday night proof-readers 12 rounds of matches $300/round $3,600​

Updated the Premiership looks as though it has 8 teams this year – not that HKRU has released any information or fixture lists – so please see the revised costs. Sorry for the inconvenience

Costs:
$800-$1,000/match – covers writing, proof-reading and editing
56 league matches @ $800-1000: $44,800-56,000
Championship rounds 5 matches
Writers bonus: $5,000
There are also three blue v red matches so at least 60 matches.

Total: $60,000 to cover 6 months of women’s rugby

If there’s extra funding donated we’ll expand and cover matches in WNL1 and WNL2.

Women’s Rugby Coverage – Crowdfunding Campaign

Donate here https://gogetfunding.com/hk-womens-rugby-match-reports/

Thank you for your time in reading this and your support in raising the awareness of domestic women’s rugby.

Photo: Takumi Photography

Valley Black Win Grand Final!

Valley Black made it three Grand Championship wins on the trot in the Women’s Premiership defeating Gai Wu Falcons 15-7 in a competitive and defence dominated final at King’s Park.

A match featuring the teams that have won the last seven grand championships between them was always going to be willing, but it was Valley who again showed their might.

The victory extended Valley’s undefeated streak to three full seasons and an unbelievable 42 matches as well as handing them their sixth of the past eight grand championships.

“They’re an awesome bunch,” enthused coach James Elliott. “All of them impressed me, but the usual suspects were good – Olivia Coady is a machine, Toto [Cheng], Frenchie [Amelie Seure], our back three were immense. And the backline is class. Obviously Bella [Milo] stands out. To me she is the most talented female rugby player I have seen.”

The heightened pressure of a final was evident early on, with both sides doing their best to settle as the forward packs felt out their opposite numbers. Valley looked livelier to begin with and found the try-line through dynamic back-rower Coady, with fullback Zoe Smith conversion on target the league champions jumped out to an early 7-0 lead.

Despite the early score, it soon became clear that tries were going to be hard to come by as the respective defences marked their territory. Gai Wu’s effort could not be faulted but they struggled to create genuine scoring opportunities, with Valley having all the answers every time their opponents looked to launch an attacking move. Valley pulled further ahead as half-time loomed, with Smith on target with a penalty, 10-0.

The second half was a battle of attrition, with Gai Wu putting it all on the line in an attempt to revive their hopes. The Falcons did the bulk of the attacking in the third quarter, with the period highlighted by some lively work from Chong Ka-yan on the wing.

Valley launched the odd counter, however neither team could trouble the scorers. The slog continued into the last 20 minutes of the match, with Valley wresting back the momentum and driving the Falcons back into their half.

Colleen Tsojvold and Adrienne Garvey battled hard as Valley threatened to cross again and eventually their sustained forward push returned results. Ex-Samoa captain Milo was the beneficiary, with the powerful centre cracking the Falcons line and dotting down to put the result beyond doubt.

“The last five minutes was a bit scrappy, but we had to bring off Karen [So] at prop because of cramp, she’s a Hong Kong front rower so if you bring someone like that off your scrum goes downhill,” Elliot said. “All our players got on the field and we had three 17-year-olds in the squad, so it was a good result.”

Gai Wu were rewarded for their relentless effort in the final minute with a penalty try, ensuring they did not go scoreless. “I’m disappointed with the result but I feel really proud of the girls,” Falcons coach Lai Yiu-pang said. “To play a side with a former Black Fern [Coady] and a former Samoa player [Milo], the girls have never experienced that kind of quality in Hong Kong before.

“We did really well in the second half and our performance showed that we’ve improved a lot. I don’t think any one player stood out, it was a team effort and we deserved to get some points at the end.”

Additional reporting, photos: HK Rugby

WNL 2: Grand Championships Winners SCAA CWB Lammergeier

SCAA CWB Lammergeier are the 2016-17 Women’s National League 2: Grand Championships Winners after beating Tai Po in the final.

Women’s National League 1: Grand Championships Winners Tai Po Dragons

Tai Po Dragons are the 2016-17 Women’s National League 1: Grand Championships Winners after a comprehensive 19-0 victory over Revolution SRC in the final.