The 2016/17 HKRU Premiership is underway after today’s Super Saturday saw all six men’s Premiership sides in action at King’s Park, the home of Hong Kong Rugby.

Despite the fresh start to the season the results had a familiar feel as last season’s top contenders Societe Generale Valley and Herbert Smith Freehills HKCC recorded wins over Natixis HKFC (34-6) and Bloomberg Hong Kong Scottish (30-23) respectively. In the finale of today’s triple trio, Tigers came back from an early deficit to beat Kowloon 17-7.

Matches between Hong Kong’s oldest rugby rivals Valley and HKFC are always tough and tight and that trend continued in the first half of today’s clash, with Valley edging ahead purely by taking its chances better than its opponent.

Two successful penalty attempts from Valley captain Matt Rosslee - the first of which came after 28 scoreless minutes - were the difference at half time, with no side willing to give an inch.

HKFC registered its first score soon after the break when Ben Axten-Burrett also booted a penalty, before two accurate kicks from Rosslee gave Valley a 12-3 advantage. The game remained tight until the dying stages, before a Tiger Bax try with the score at 15-6 with 10 minutes remaining broke the back of HKFC. Matt Bell and Grant Kemp crossed late to turn what was a hard-fought contest into an easy win for last season’s double champions.

New Valley coach Andrew Kelly, a former player for the club, was pleased with his side’s start to the season but is not getting ahead of himself early.

“I’m absolutely delighted. It was a tough old battle in the first half and I think we just managed to convert the opportunities that we had a bit better then they did.”

The win saw Valley retain its grip on the Broony Quaich, which they picked up after last year’s opening Super Saturday clash before defending it for 14 consecutive weeks.

Despite a tumultuous build-up for HKCC, with the resignation of long-time coach Deacon Manu mid-week, the Cricketers rebounded well to chalk up an opening win under interim coach Kevin West as they held off a strong challenge from Scottish 30-23.

“We’re delighted with the result, said West. “We’ve had a pretty tough week with what’s been happening and we’ve only had one warm up game, so we were struggling to get our systems right but we fronted up today. Our defence was solid as was our work at the breakdown and I thought we showed good intent on attack. With the week as it was, you have to be happy with that result.

West credited the impact of an influx of new players in Aberdeen, particularly fullback and specialist goal-kicker James Love from Loughborough University in the UK.

“All of the new players have bought into what we are doing really, really well. We’re delighted with everything we’ve got from them. James was spectacular and [No.8] Ben Davey, who was here two years ago with Valley, is a fantastic addition,” West added.

Love collected 15 points from the boot with three penalties and three conversions. His kicking counterpart at Tigers, flyhalf Gregor McNeish, was also on song, boosting his side’s efforts with three penalties and two conversions.

Scottish leapt out to a 13-0 lead in the first half after McNeish bookended a try from flanker Ewan Miller with two penalties and a conversion. But HKCC replied with 20 unanswered points en route to a 20-13 lead at the break after tries from flanker Adrian Griffiths and wing Brad Raper with Love adding the conversions and two penalties.

McNeish clawed back three of those points with a penalty to start the second half but Scottish conceded a penalty try handing the advantage back to the Southsiders 27-16. Miller picked up is second try of the afternoon to close the gap to seven before Love’s fourth and final pot at goal put HKCC clear 30-23.

Scottish coach Craig Hammond was left ruing what might have been. “It’s pretty frustrating. We did some good things, we started well and were 13-0 nil up but then we sat back a little bit and let them back in the game.

“You’ve got to give it to HKCC, they’re a good team and their 15 [Love] kicked some big goals and put us under pressure. A simple penalty here or there and we were really under the pump. Overall it’s a reasonable start, but we’re here to win footy games and to come away losing by seven in our first match is pretty frustrating,” Hammond concluded. Scottish were the only club in today’s Premiership to claim a bonus point for a loss within seven points.

The finale featured a peninsular clash as Tigers faced off against Kowloon, both of whom share King’s Park as their home ground. Tigers claimed the bragging rights on this occasion with a 17-7 win. Both sides played each other to a standstill in a tense opening half with Hong Kong prop Jamie Tsang crossing over for the first points in the 36th minute giving Kowloon a 7-0 advantage after flyhalf Jack Neville’s conversion.

The Tigers replied in the second stanza with Samuel Hocking’s try drawing them level after flyhalf Sam Ellis’s conversion. The game hung in the balance until Ellis added a penalty to give Tigers some breathing room before centre Sam Purvis sealed the win with a late try - converted by Ellis - for a 17-7 win.

Despite the fightback Tigers coach Craig Stewart was less than pleased with the narrow result saying, “I’m pretty disappointed with our performance. We’re a much better side than that. We prepared very thoroughly for this match so to leave it till late was really disappointing. I don’t think we played smart. We felt we knew how Kowloon wanted to defend but we played right into their hands.

“But the fact that we figured it out and showed some character and a bit of resolve is obviously a good trait to have so I’m pretty pleased with that. We just need to play smarter,” said Stewart.

The opening round results see Valley, HKCC and Tigers top the table on four points followed by Scottish with a sole bonus point with HKFC and Kowloon yet to figure. Today’s action is the first of 15 rounds in this season’s Premiership. The top two finishers in the standings will earn a bye in the Grand Championship play-offs with the remainders contesting the quarter-finals.