Old Mutual International Men’s Premiership Round 6 Highlights

The game of the week in the Old Mutual International Men’s Premiership saw Bloomberg HK Scottish put on a clinic in a 68-17 win over Herbert Smith FreehillsHKCC.

After the Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers defeated SocieteGeneraleValley 28-10 on Thursday night, Natixis HKFC rounded out the week with a 19-12 win over Kowloon.

The 51-point victory was Scottish’s biggest in their history and it came on the back of 10 tries and some solid defence.

“I think so, I’ve been here five-and-a-half seasons and the club was only a year old when I got here and the first year they had a lot of hidings,” coach Craig Hammond said.

“They’re a good team, too, Cricket Club, when you look at them on paper. I just think we didn’t let them play.

“Our mindset was defensively to keep working, we can score tries but we have to work hard on defence and I think today we did that.

“We did a bit of homework during the week and we knew that if we could keep hold of the ball and build on those phases we would be okay. It was not perfect by any means but it’s a lot better going into a little bit of a break.”

Scottish exploded out of the blocks to take a 31-0 lead thanks to two tries to Conor Hartley and singles to Josh Dowsing, Kane Boucautand Ben Tyler.

Tyler was in on the act again soon after as Scottish built their lead, while Jack Parfitt, Shae Turner, Ashton Hyde and Harris Grant all found the line in the second half.

“We’ve had a big week, to be 28-10 up at half-time last week and lose [against Tigers], the boys needed a bit of a redirection this week and I think they took a lot on themselves, which is really good from a coaching side of things,” Hammond said.

“It was a lot more player led and I think it showed out there today. It was good to see at half-time the mentality that it was nil-nil and we start again.”

Jack Delaforce, Seb Brien and Gair Currie were the try scorers for HKCC but it was little consolation for coach Brett Wilkinson.

“It’s pretty disappointing, we missed tackles and at crucial times we made crucial mistakes,” he said.

“We’ll have to come up with an answer pretty quick. We’ve got two weeks off so we will look to work hard and fix the things that we made mistakes on. It just wasn’t good enough today.”

Football Club were forced to work extra hard for their victory after a torrid first half saw them trailing 9-7 at the break.

Fullback Michael Hanning banged over all of Kowloon’s first-half points from the tee, while his counterpart Glyn Hughes converted his own try to get HKFC on the scoreboard.

HKFC hit the lead early in the second half through a try to Jamie Hood before Scott Sneddon brought ‘Loon back level with a penalty.

It was a try to winger Jamie Lauder in the 65th minute that broke the deadlock and ensured HKFC returned to the winner’s list.

Thursday night’s game was a see-sawing affair, with Tigers jumping out of the blocks to build a commanding 15-0 lead by the break.

After fly half Robbie Keith got things underway for the visitors with a successful penalty attempt in the opening minutes, scrum half Josh Walden found the try line to make it 8-0 after the first quarter.

No 8 Josh Hrstich got in on the action on 22 minutes and Keith converted to ensure his side had all the momentum.

But it was a rejuvenated Valley side that emerged after the break and, as they so often do, they hit back with a vengeance, with back-rower Thomas Lamboley crossing in the second minute of the second half to breath life into the match.

Ben Rimene then went to work from the tee, first landing the conversion and then slotting a penalty to bring it back to 15-10 on 50 minutes.

But the Tigers settled and eventually pulled away, with a try to winger SalomYiuKam-shing and a further eight points from the boot of Keith sealing the deal.

In Saturday's action in the Old Mutual International Championship, University Wizards saw off Disciplined Services 52-0 to retain the Old Mutual International Championship Challenge Cup for a fourth week and hold on to second place in the league, behind Vistra Typhoons. Next week, Discovery Bay Pirates take on the Wizards, in their second shot at this season’s new trophy.