Hong Kong’s selectors on Tuesday named a battle-hardened squad for this weekend’s Asian Rugby Football Union U20s Sevens Series tournament at King’s Park, as the city’s juniors look to complete an unbeaten 2014 season in regional competitions.
The Hong Kong U20s won the opening leg of the ARFU series in Johor Bahru, Malaysia in August and are expecting to repeat that feat in front of their home supporters this Friday and Saturday (December 19-20, 2014) in the series finale.
“Home advantage is always great,” said team firebrand Hugo Stiles. “I played in the Junior World Rugby Trophy (JWRT) and we had a great crowd for every game. Hopefully we will see similar support at King’s Park.”
Victory would see the sevens U20s side complete an unbeaten run in ARFU junior contests in 2014 – their fifteens team-mates won the Junior World Rugby Trophy’s Asian qualifier in Colombo in October with a victory which qualified Hong Kong for World Rugby’s international U20s tournament in Portugal next April.
It would also mark a clean sweep of elite men’s sevens titles in the region, as Hong Kong’s senior men recaptured the 2014 ARFU Asian Sevens Series title, also in October.
But winning this weekend won’t be easy as Hong Kong will face China, Taiwan and South Korea – all strong competitors at Asian age-grade level who will be making their 2014 series debuts – as well as Malaysia, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates.
“Malaysia have always been quite tough but in the second leg we have South Korea and China, who we know are quite fierce, so we expect it will be a tougher competition,” said Stiles.
Stiles, who plays for Societe Generale Valley in the HKRFU Premiership, is one of 11 players from the 12 who won the series opener in Malaysia.
Leighton Asia HKCC hooker Alex Post and Valley’s Liam Owens join him as co-captains for the squad, which features Natixis HKFC players Hugo Chui Ho-ching and Richard Lewis, who made his senior fifteens debut in last month’s Ustinov Cup series against Russia, as well Calvin Hunter and Daniel Davidson from Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers.
Hotly tipped U20s squad players from outside the Premiership include Joshua Clery of Discovery Bay Pirates and Eric Kwok Pung-nga from City RFC. Kwok will look to cap a strong season as he was present in both Hong Kong’s opening series win in Malaysia and the JWRT victory in Sri Lanka.
A trio of UK-based university players have also returned for the series finale – including Rupert Phillips, Jason Jeyam and Tomos Howells. Phillips and Jeyam were both part of the team who won in Malaysia.
Head coach Fan Shun-kei, himself a former Hong Kong age-grade and men’s sevens standout, said of the team’s hopes: “Our preparations are now in their final stages and things have progressed well. The guys returning from university have integrated well with the locally based players.
“Now we are focusing on putting everything together for the tournament as we try to become the [first] Asian U20s Sevens champions.”
Hong Kong U20s sevens squad
Richard Lewis, Alex Post (co-captain), Calvin Hunter, Joshua Clery, Rupert Phillips, Jason Jeyam, Liam Owens (co-captain), Hugo Stiles, Hugo Chui Ho-ching, Tomos Howells, Erick Kwok Pung-nga,, Daniel Davidson.
Hong Kong’s match schedule (Friday, December 19 at King’s Park)
12:06 Hong Kong v China
14:34 Hong Kong v South Korea
17:02 Hong Kong v UAE
