Hong Kong—Three close matches were seen in the Hong Kong Rugby Premiership last Saturday. Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers and Society Generale Valley notched up a hard fought wins, while Natixis HKFC picked up their second win of the season at Aberdeen.
Tigers took the game away from Bloomberg HK Scottish with a narrow 27-23 win at King’s Park to keep their points moving forward and into second place in the table. This is a big change from last year when Tigers were struggling at the bottom of the standings.
At half time it was 13-all and the attacking play by Scottish after the interval put them in front but Tigers kept defending and counter attacking and finally emerged deserved winners.
Tiger’s coach Craig Stewart was justly pleased “We were confident that we had the right plan. We were confident that we knew how they would play and that we had a plan to stop it. I’m really happy with the result and happy with the guys. It’s pretty significant for us as a team” he said after the match.
Flyhalf Diggy Bird back from injury for Scottish was on form both through the posts and in general play scoring 13-points with the boot and Tigers centres Tyler Spitz and Braam Gerber were strong in defence. The Tigers pack did most of their teams attacking producing scores from rolling mauls and good tactical play. Both teams played well but Scottish gave away a few too many errors in scoring positions.
HKFC playing away to Leighton Asia at Aberdeen completed a 19-13 win. Although a close and hard fought match, the win keeps HKFC in touch with the teams immediately above them. HKCC still missing their sidelined Sevens players have yet to make a winning mark in this year’s competition.
In the match at Happy Valley, Societe Generale Valley posted an 11-6 win over Sabre Kowloon. Although a difficult low scoring match with Valley some way below their best it maintains their winning momentum.
After 4-rounds, Societe Generale Valley are at the top with 16-points Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers are second on 12-points, Bloomberg HK Scottish are just one point behind on 11, Natixis HKFC have 9-points, with 2-wins and a bonus point. Leighton Asia have 1-win to their name and 5-points and Sabre Kowloon having had a bad start to the season have not yet recorded a win have just 1-point.
Fixtures
Round-5 of the men’s Premiership: HK Scottish play Kowloon at Shek Kip Mei, HKFC play Valley at Sports Road and Tigers play HKCC at King’s Park. In the women’s Premiership Tigers play Gai Wu Falcons and Valley Black Ladies play CWC Phoenix CWB, both at Shek Kip Mei, while Tai Po Dragon Ladies meet HKFC Ice at HKFC.
Women
In the women’s Premiership on Saturday Oct 24, Societe Generale Valley Black Ladies had a storming victory over Natixis HKFC Ice winning 52-0, CPM Gai Wu Falcons produced an even higher points total beating Sabre Kowloon Ladies 63-0 and SCAA First Pacific CWB Phoenix CWB outscored Transact 24 Tai Po Dragon Ladies 16-7. The Valley vs HKFC match was played at HKFC and the other two were contested at Shek Kip Mei. With seven teams in the Premiership Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers had a bye last week.
