Tag: Valley RFC
Women’s Rugby Results – 10 October, 2015
Premiership
USRC Tigers 17-5 HKFC Ice
@ King’s Park, Kick-off: 18:00
Rose Fong’s match report
HKFC Ice: Denise Chan, Shonagh Ryan, Megan Richardson, Zuzanna Osinska, Martina Colombo, Jamie Bourk, Bobby Wilson, Daisy Miers, Sophie Short, Aileen Ryan, Stephanie Siu, Jane Cheung, Grace Hood, Casey Gallagher, Sarah McMillan
Substitutes: Kim Kan, Amy Kong, Aysha Fiaz, Carol Hung, Iris Chan, Audrey Lo, Rabbit Leung
Try: Sarah McMillan
Tai Po 0-14 Gai Wu Falcons
@ Shek Kip Mei, Kick-off: 18:00
CWB Phoenix 22-5 Kowloon
@ So Kon Po, Kick-off: 18:00
National League 1
USRC Tigers 75-0 HKFC Fire
@ King’s Park, Kick-off: 15:00
HK Scottish 12-10 HKCC
@ Shek Kip Mei, Kick-off: 15:00
Robbo Robertson, Scottish perspective match report
Alex Tarleton’s HKCC Match report
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
Tai Po Dragons 10-42 Valley Red
@ Shek Kip Mei, Kick-off: 16:30
Adrienne Garvey’s match report
Valley Reds: Anita Vogel, Shermaine Choi, Natalie Chan, Kim Senogles, Clarant Ho, Teagan Lo, Jessica Knight, KK Wong, Carman Law, K Wong, Sophie Lai, Lewis Wong, Zoe Smith, Michelle Kim, Tarryn Lo,
Substitutes: Anna Hyrske, Phoebe Fok, Aggie Au Yeung, Aryana Gant, Emily Russell, Suzanne Stikko, Julie Savoie
Try: Zoe Smith (3), Anita Vogel, KK Wong, Aryana Gant, Suzzanne Stikko, Sophie Lai. Conversions: Kay Wong
CWB Pheasants 5-29 City Sparkles
@ So Kon Po, Kick-off: 16:30
Police Sirens 5-0 Gai Wu Fawkes
@ Police Boundary Street, Kick-off: 18:00
Women’s Rugby Fixtures: 10 October, 2015
Women’s Rugby Season 15/16 Preview
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
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.
Valley RFC Ladies Rugby
Established in the early 1990’s, Societe Generale Valley Ladies Rugby team has grown to be one of the most successful women’s rugby club teams in Hong Kong. From our humble beginnings, the team has made incredible progress in terms of on-field rugby achievements and introducing new players into the game of rugby. In our short history, we have gone from having a few ladies playing the odd game of touch rugby to being able to field two 15’s women’s teams into two separate divisions – Valley Black ladies and Valley Red ladies. We have been league winners and grand championship winners in previous years and continue to strive adding to our trophy cabinet.
Valley Black ladies are a team made up of girls with international playing experience as well as those who are experienced with the game. This team plays in the HKRFU Women’s 15’s division 1 league. Valley Red ladies are a team made of up of both experienced and development players as well as those who are new to the game. This team plays in the HKRFU Women’s 15’s division 2 league. We also have several minis and colts teams with young girls playing in the different age group teams. These girls eventually feed into our women’s team through a clear pathway of rugby development.
Not only do we play rugby, but we have a great social scene too with lots of regular off the field events throughout the year, including our street party, annual rugby tours to Macau and another Asian destinations (previous years including Shanghai, Philippines and Singapore).
Whether you are fast or slow, big or small, new or experienced, social or serious, there is a place for you at Valley RFC. We train at Happy Valley rugby pitch every Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:30pm – 9:00pm. Games are played on Saturday afternoons. If you are interested in coming down for a run around or to see what rugby is like contact [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.valleyrfc.com or www.facebook.com/groups/129965760495825/
Training: Happy Valley rugby pitch every Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:30 – 9pm
Coach: Chris Garvey and Jo Wilkonson
Captain: Amelie Seure and Aggie Akanisi Vira