Hong Kong Rugby Round-Up: Surging Scottish Climb to the Top of the Table

Our match reports from the weekend's Hong Kong club rugby, where Scottish continued their impressive run of form, and the reigning champions Societe Generale Valley fell to Kowloon.

Bloomberg Hong Kong Scottish beat Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers 16-0 today at Shek Kip Mei to claim a share of first place in the RugbyPass.Com Premiership Game of the Week. Societe Generale Valley dropped just their second match of the season, losing to Kowloon 20-13 at King’s Park. The match between Natixis HKFC and Herbert Smith Freehills HKCC was postponed.

Sharing the summit with Valley is just reward for Scottish’s tremendous run of form, although coach Craig Hammond is well and truly keeping a lid on things.

“We are game by game and we have got a couple of big games coming up, but we are winning so I am pretty happy,” he said.

The match got underway in shocking conditions, with lashing rain and penetrating wind making ball handling next to impossible. The first 20 minutes were a real grind, with a Gregor McNeish penalty giving the home side a 3-0 advantage.

The rain slackened a touch as half-time approached but errors aplenty ensured the game retained its stop-start nature, with Conor Hartley making his presence felt for the hosts.

Scottish flanker Ewan Miller was lively and threatened the try line twice in quick succession with two line-breaking but ultimately unsuccessful runs.

Cado Lee Ka-to and Craig Lodge worked their way into the play for Tigers as the game progressed, but the visitors found it hard to generate any genuine scoring opportunities.

Scottish finally found a way to the line with only minutes remaining in the half, with captain Kane Boucaut touching down. McNeish added the extras to send his side into the break with a handy 10-0 lead.

It was again Scottish who dominated possession during the opening stages of the second half, at one point forcing Tigers to defend resolutely on their line for multiple phases.

The only addition to the score was another McNeish penalty, while a lively period of play saw Sam Purvis go within inches of scoring for Tigers, before Scottish threatened on the counterattack.

The injection of scrum half Jason Jeyam had a real impact for Tigers, with the rising star giving his side some genuine direction.

They came close to scoring on a number of occasions but were unable to find the line as Scottish rounded out proceedings via two more McNeish penalties.

“They are a quality side and they have got some pretty good strike power,” Hammond said.

“I thought defensively - not letting them over the line, we worked hard and the boys dug pretty deep.”

The three Chiefs development players that stepped out – Josh Dowsing and Lars Morrice for Scottish and Joseph Ikenasio for Tigers – all acquitted themselves well, while Tigers boss Craig Stewart saw some positives despite his side’s scoreless effort.

“They are a good side,” Stewart said. “Tactically they were a lot smarter than us. We had the wind in the first half and for one reason or another we didn’t use it. I think there are lots of positives we can take out of the second 40, but the second 40 is 40 minutes too late.”

Kowloon handed Valley their second loss of the season, 20-13, at King’s Park, in a match that they never trailed. Kowloon conceded just three penalties and a penalty try to a Valley side that could have been suffering a Cup of Nations hangover, with ten of its team coming off three test matches in the last fortnight.

Kowloon had its share of internationals in action as well, and one of those, flanker James Cunningham, was first across the line for the hosts in the 20th minute. Fly half Jack Neville added the conversion in another bulletproof performance with the boot, as Kowloon claimed a 7-0 lead. Flanker James Sawyer added to Kowloon’s lead ten minutes later with a try that was converted by Neville to push the lead to 14 points.

Valley’s lone reply came in the 40th minute through a penalty from fly half Ben Rimene to bring the score to 14-3 at half-time. Rimene ushered Valley back to within touching distance in the second half, adding a second penalty and a conversion of a penalty try in the 58th minute, as they clawed back to 14-13 ahead of the final quarter.

A stalemate ensued, with Neville’s boot the only difference. His 64th minute penalty gave Kowloon some respite at 17-13, and he added the icing on the cake with a second penalty on full-time to bring the final score to 20-13.

Neville’s ten point effort brings him to 73 points for the season, second in the scoring stakes to McNeish, whose 11-point tally in atrocious conditions in the late game moved him to 77 for the season.