In a re-match of last year’s Grand Championship decider, an in-form Societe Generale Valley take on a Herbert Smith Freehills HKCC side coming off the back of consecutive losses in the marquee matchup of round four of the Rugbypass.com Men’s Premiership. Other matches sees Natixis HKFC take on Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers at Football Club and Kowloon welcome Bloomberg Hong Kong Scottish to King’s Park, with all matches filling the 4.30pm timeslot.

Valley are at home against HKCC and it has been a contrasting start to the season for the two heavyweights, with Valley continuing on its merry way despite changes in personnel and HKCC struggling for momentum after welcoming a raft of recruits.

Valley is coming off a masterful 31-17 win over Scottish a fortnight ago, in which it played its best rugby of the season and will be confident of continuing its unbeaten start to the year.

HKCC coach Kevin West knows his charges are in for the toughest of challenges, but is keen to see his side continue working on its own game rather than make major changes to combat an in-form Valley.

"We haven't been too far of the mark so far and at this early stage of the season we are still focusing on getting our game right," West said. "They have started the season well and we are expecting them to be hot around the contact area. They have been moving the ball well."

West praised the work of his recruits in the opening three games of the year and is pleased with the way they have gelled with the group. He highlighted former Valley player Ben Davey and full back James Love as two he has been particularly impressed with, with Love currently the third-highest points scorer in the Premiership.

Tigers are hunting another big scalp two weeks on from its upset win over HKCC and will fancy its chances against a HKFC that has had an up and down start to the season that has netted only one win. That being said, Phil Bailey’s side showed progress in their last-start, a 23-12 win over Kowloon, and Tigers coach Craig Stewart knows it won’t just happen for his charges.

“We are really aware of how we control our possession and how disciplined we need to be,” Stewart said. “If we allow soft turnovers or our discipline is not good then we will allow them easy metres and allow them to apply pressure really easily.

“They are a funny side in a sense that they run the ball from anywhere. They can also be pretty direct and they have got a couple of reasonable ball carriers that they rely on for some go-forward. I expect them to try and go through the middle of us.”

After an improved 2015-16 season that saw Tigers put years of hardship behind them, Stewart knows that winning must now become an expectation.

“At the start of last season we won a few games just by fighting it out a couple of times but we know that we can add a lot more to our game so we are pretty positive about that,” he said. “The biggest positive for us is that we are nowhere near hitting our straps but for a club like us we need to start winning games instead of just competing in them.”

The clash between Kowloon and Scottish features two sides coming off of losses and, with both teams having only one win under the belt, the loser will find itself significantly off the pace after four rounds. Scottish has played some impressive rugby and has taken it up to both Valley and HKCC before eventually going down, while Kowloon’s inspirational one-point win over HKCC in round two is the highlight of its year thus far.

“There are some elements of our game that we are happy with and others which still need work,” Kowloon coach James Scaysbrook said. “In general we are moving in the right direction. There are definitely some areas of our game that we continue to work on which we have seen improvement in, but we are not there yet.”

Scaysbrook highlighted Jamie Tsang as a key player for his side in Saturday’s match and the bustling hooker will be important in matching the physicality of the Scottish forward pack.

“They're a really competitive team and we expect a physical display,” Scaysbrook said. “They have a sizeable pack and will be physical in that area. In general, if you get your individual actions done well you are most of the way there, so we are quite focused on those actions and fitting that into our team shape.”