Hong Kong Rugby Celebrates New Year with Community Tournaments

The Hong Kong Rugby Football Union has organised a full schedule of community tournaments to celebrate the new year.

As it has been for the past four decades, the highlight of local rugby’s festive season is the Prudential New Year’s Day Youth Rugby Tournament at Hong Kong Football Club (10.00 to 19.00 on Thursday, 1 January 2015).

The 2015 Prudential New Year’s Day Youth Rugby Tournament will feature an entertaining slate of matches for the entire family with eight age grade competitions held for boys and girls from Under 12s to Under 19s level.

The early matches will see local bragging rights at stake with the Island Lions select team playing the Peninsula Dragons at Under 12 and Under 14 levels for both boys and girls, and U16 girls age grades.

The Under 19 Girls match will also be contested on a Hong Kong Select versus Overseas Barbarians format for the first time this year. This mirrors the Under 16 and Under 19 Boys matches, which have traditionally been the showcase of the tournament.

Last year’s Wright-Naylor Middlesex Cup (Under 19 Boys) ended with the happy occasion of a draw as both sides finished level on 22 points before co-winners were declared. This year’s U19 Boys match promises to be equally entertaining with both teams busily preparing for the tie and eager for an outright result.

The matches, especially at U19 level, are an important opportunity for Hong Kong selectors to evaluate locally eligible talent based both in the SAR and abroad. As testament to the tournament’s value as a proving ground, Richard Lewis, last year’s Larry Abel Best & Fairest trophy winner on New Year’s Day scored two pivotal tries to help Hong Kong win the cup at the ARFU U20 Sevens tournament last weekend.

“The Prudential New Year’s Day Tournament is one of the highlights in Hong Kong’s rugby calendar and it is one of the biggest occasion of the year for the youngsters that take the field,” said HKRFU Senior coach Andrew Hall. “It's always great to see an action packed day full of our next generation of Hong Kong stars culminating as always with the overseas fixtures. For the first time this year we have added an overseas U19 girls fixture to the schedule and these games in particular are a huge part of our player development structure as we look to keep tabs on the talent off our shores as well as on. This year the boys Under 19s match will have even more spice with the players angling to book their place in Hong Kong’s Under 20 squad that travel to Portugal later in the year for the Junior World Rugby Trophy.”

Hot on the heels of the New Year’s Day extravaganza is the Standard Chartered Tertiary Invitation Sevens on the first weekend of 2015 (January 3-4). Over 45 tertiary teams will take with 144 matches played across the two days at King’s Park in Kowloon (match action will run from 0900 to 1800 on both days).

2015 marks the tenth year of the Tertiary Sevens with the inaugural event being held in the 2004-2005 season. This year also marks the 9th year of Standard Chartered’s support for the tournament and the tertiary 15s league. The majority of the 900 players participating this weekend will also be representing their universities and colleges as they compete for the Varsity 15s Cup in April and May.

In keeping with the season, Standard Chartered, HKRFU and the Tertiary Sevens organizers have included a charity element in the proceedings for the first time.

The tournament will see local tertiary students raising funds over the two days in a variety of ways including through sales of event merchandise and baked goods as well as donations raised on-site to support the Hong Kong Hearing Impaired Ruby Team tour to Cambodia next summer.

All funds raised will be matched dollar for dollar by the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union and Standard Chartered to support the Hong Kong Hearing Impaired Rugby team’s reciprocal visit to Cambodia after the latter toured Hong Kong in Autumn 2014.

Attendance to both events is free and all are welcome.