The HKRU men’s and women’s Grand Championship semi finals will kick off tomorrow. After some surprising quarter-final results in the men’s competition, Sabre Kowloon will face Leighton Asia Hong Kong Cricket Club (Aberdeen, 15.30), while Bloomberg Hong Kong Scottish will face league champions Societe Generale Valley (HV-8, 16.30). The women’s quarter-finals ran to form with HKFC Ice beating SCAA Causeway Bay to set up a semi-final versus undefeated league champions Valley (HV-8, 15.00). A titanic clash is on the cards in the other semi with Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers playing CPM Gai Wu Falcons at King’s Park (18.00).

Despite finishing at the bottom of the league table Kowloon upended HKFC in the quarter-final to advance to the semis against second-placed HKCC. Kowloon have yet to beat HKCC this season losing 26-10 in Round 1 and 40-15 in Round 8, before pushing HKCC to the limit in a 20-19 loss in Round 14.

“We’ve been progressively getting better all season,” says coach James Scaysbrook. “The more we play the more we improve and we’re looking to continue that this weekend. The guys are focused. They put in a good physical performance last week against Club and we’re looking to build on what we’ve done.”

Key to the club’s hopes this weekend is eliminating unforced errors says Scaysbrook. “There are still a few areas we need to improve on, especially our consistency and eliminating the mental errors. HKCC have got a good all-round game. It’s will be tough and our challenge is to go out and execute our game plan. We don’t have a secret weapon, but when we don’t make mental errors we are a different team. We’ve shown we can dog it out.”

Despite wrestling HKFC for the quarter-final win, the side is in good shape physically and Scaysbrook anticipates running out a similar side tomorrow. “Considering the big effort last week we came through pretty much unscathed. There really is nobody out this weekend.”

HKCC is in sight of its third straight Grand Championships final appearance although they’ve done it the hard way as their prior two campaigns were the result of league championship runs. This season, no one has been able to close the gap on Valley.

Scottish enter the semis after a tense win over Tigers, a result that saw them concede a fourteen-point half-time lead before holding on for a drop goal win in extra-time. The hard-fought effort versus Tigers sees Scottish return to the semis for a second straight season.

“It was an emotional win [over Tigers],” said Hammond, who knows another one will be required if they hope to upend Valley. “Valley has had a week off, so they will be fresh. We respect them and what they are about. We know we’re up against it but we’ve got nothing to lose. It’s play-off footy and can go either way. We’ll go out there and throw the kitchen sink at them.”

That’s a reaction that Valley coach Jack Isaac expected from the Shek Kip Mei outfit: “Scottish have had huge problems this season with injuries and visa complications for key players. They blooded a raft of young players with U19 and U20 pedigree and they’ve come along in leaps and bounds this season. They have a lot of character and a lot of desire to win.

“The last time we faced them, they gave us a lot of problems, especially at the breakdown. We were poor at the breakdown the last time out so they’ll probably want to get us on the ground a lot. They turned over a lot of our ball so that’s what we’ll need to watch out for primarily. They’re an active team and we need to be ready. It’s all up for grabs now.”

Valley has the luxury of numbers this weekend, says Isaac. “There are going to be a lot of good players in our Premiership A side [versus HKCC]. We’ve got a full squad and I was able to select from about 47 players. It’s fantastic for the club but it’s a headache for a coach. It’s not ideal to have the lay-off, but we’ve had a good build-up. We’ve trained well and had some good contact against our Prem A squad which was colourful, but overall it’s been a good preparation,” Isaac added.

In the women’s competition, it will fall to Natixis HKFC Ice to face league champions Valley and try for the miracle win that would add the icing on the cake of an already successful debut Premiership season.In fourth place at the end of the league season, Ice maintained their advantage over Causeway Bay winning the quarter-final 29-12, to reach the semi-final. The task ahead is undoubtedly immense. HKFC has yet to post a point against Valley in two matches this season, 46-0 and 51-0 losses respectively.

The other semi promises to be a titanic clash between CPM Gai Wu Falcons, the traditional contenders to the Valley mantle in recent seasons, and upstart Tigers who edged Falcons out of second place in the league this season.The tie will likely be the closest result of both the men’s and women’s semis with nothing separating the two sides on the season.

They finished just one point apart on the table and both entered the play-offs with nine win, three loss seasons. They split their matches this season with Falcons grabbing the early result 22-0 in Round 5 while Tigers bounced back with a 24-5 win in Round 10.The remaining losses for both teams came at the hands of Valley with Tigers losing their two matches against the League champions by a combined 48 points while Falcons dropped their two ties against Valley by a combined 49 points.

Both teams enjoyed a relatively easy route to the penultimate round after Falcons beat Kowloon 76-0 in the quarter-final while Tigers beat Transact24 Tai Po Dragons 62-0.

With little to differentiate the two sides, it will largely be a mental game according to Tiger coach Liu Kwok Leung: “It's 50-50 and both sides are confident. We’re both hampered by injuries so I think attitude will be the key to win this game. We really respect Gai Wu and it should be a good match.”

Falcons coach Lai Yiu Pang says that with the teams so evenly poised, defence will be the key: “Defence is the most important factor. Our defence hasn’t performed well enough under pressure this season and it’s something we’ve been working on both individually and as a team. Hopefully that will pay off for us.”

Falcons will also look to attack the Tigers at the breakdown saying, “Their play at the breakdown is stronger than ours. But if we can secure the ball and get good possession we can set up our attacking platform. Our pack is strong and the plan will be to stick with them more and rely on them to create the attacking space we need. We expect a tough game. Fortunately, we’ve been able to have two full squad sessions this week, which has been rare this season. We’ve been able to work on our patterns more for this game.”

Tigers haven’t had the luxury of a full training this week. “We haven’t had the full squad to train but we’re confident in what we’ve been working on this season and I know we can perform well.”

The numbers will be important for both sides with Falcons worrying about fullback Lau Sze Wa’s fitness while sevens stars Christy Cheng and Emmy Chan are both unavailable.

For Tigers, captain Nam Ka Man and sevens players Natasha Olson-Thorne and Lindsay Varty are all out, which coach Kwok admits could be a problem. “Those injuries have cost us a lot” said Kwok.