Bloomberg Hong Kong Scottish unleashed a torrent of second half tries to steal a 34-15 away win from Leighton Asia HKCC and return the Broony Quaich to the Rock at Shek Kip Mei. Societe Generale Valley beat USRC Borrelli Walsh Tigers 24-13 to put an early end to Tigers’ winning streak in the Premiership while Natixis Hong Kong Football Club avenged its opening round loss with a 27-10 win over Sabre Kowloon in Round Two of the HKRU Premiership.

HKCC struck first this afternoon in Aberdeen with new signing in No. 8 Marcus Slade collecting his first try for the club after some heavy lifting by the HKCC pack on the Scottish try line. Flyhalf Jason Kjestrup added the easy conversion to put HKCC up 7-0.

Lock Paul Dwyer was sent to the sin bin in the 14th minute halting HKCC’s early progress. The HKCC defence held well, conceding just one penalty to the visitors with a minute left in Dwyer’s suspension. Scottish scrumhalf Charles Cheung converted the penalty, en route to a solid outing with the booth collecting 12 points from two penalties and four conversions on the afternoon before Kjestrup added a late penalty to give HKCC a 10-3 lead at the break.

Scottish came out strong in the second half, perching on the HKCC treeline for long periods after the resumption of play. The sustained pressure led to three unanswered tries for Scottish in the first 15 minutes after the break.

A series of early second half defensive scrums proved sapping for HKCC as the Scottish pack finally produced clean ball and retained it through multiple phases to put fullback Ben Cullen in the clear for a try in the corner. Cheung’s conversion drew the scores level at 10-10.

Moments later hooker Lachlan Chubb again converted from in close, crossing over in a heap of bodies for the try. Cheung was on the mark, adding the conversion to give Scottish their first lead at 17-10.

Shortly after the restart, towering centre Lex Kaleca reaped the reward for a series of bruising mid-field runs in the second half, spotting a gap and dragging the HKCC defence across the line to score Scottish’s third try of the half. Cheung was again on target with the boot pushing Scottish tout to 24-10.

Prop Jack Parfitt collected the bonus point try for the visitors mid-way through the half to give Scottish a 31-10 edge after Cheung’s fourth conversion. Cheung would add a late penalty to push them out 34-10. HKCC’s only reply came after Scottish prop Danny Moussa was sent to the sin-bin, with the hosts scoring shortly after Scottish were back at full strength through reserve Mak Stower. Kjestrup’s conversion was off-target and Scottish claimed the win and the Broony Quaich 34-10.

“We knew it would be tough as we haven’t won here in a couple of years,” said Scottish coach Craig Hammond.

“We knew we would be up against it today, as we haven’t won here in a couple of years. So we knew we would be up against it and I’m pleased with the response from the guys. Particularly in the second half when we picked it up a gear after going to sleep a bit after halftime last week. I’ also very pleased with the performance from the bench today. We were able to bring on some big hitters who made an impact and we haven’t had that before really.

“The Quaich was a big driver for us. We held it for about six defences last season and we knew coming in today we had the chance to a. knock them over and b. take back the Quaich. Now we’ve done that and we take it back to the Rock next week to try and defend it against HKFC. Hopefully we can play some more good footy at our home opener,” added Hammond.

In other match action, Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers’ winning streak was cut short by Societe Generale Valley 23-13. Winger Dave Vainqueur and lock Andrew Smith accounted for Valley’s tries with metronomic flyhalf Reece Hamon adding both conversions and three penalties. Tigers scoring came off a try from flanker Samuel Hocking with flyhalf Matt Price adding two penalties and a conversion.

Valley led 13-6 at halftime before extending their margin to 23-6 midway through the second stanza, with Hocking clawing back a try to keep the score line respectable. But the late heroics wouldn't be enough for Tigers to collect their second win in as many weeks after enduring a two-season long drought in the wins column.

Valley assistant coach Andrew Kelly complimented Tigers post-match, “They are very competitive and they never gave up. We need to learn to push past third gear a bit. We are winning but winning ugly at the moment. Of course we’ll take the win no matter what it looks like, but we are looking forward to showing better next week.”

“We’re disappointed to not come out on top,” said Craig Stewart, Tigers Head Coach. “I was pleased at how we fought hard and created opportunities. We were definitely in the game all the way through. We had our chances but Valley don't give away easy points.

“When you have chances against them you need to take them and we didn’t. We gave them a bit of a look in and they took advantage. A couple of times when we had chances we didn’t make them count. In the end it came down to that really; but we’ve again proved we’re going to be competitive this year and are looking forward to next week,” Stewart added.

In the late match, Natixis Hong Kong Football Club got into the win column with a 27-10 win over Saber Kowloon. Disappointed after their week one loss, HKFC started strong with 15 unanswered points in the first half after flanker Matt Lamont opened the scoring in the 20th minute. Flyhalf Niall Rowark added a penalty ten minutes later to extend the lead before Callum McFeat-Smith nabbed HKFC’s second try of the half. Rowark’s conversion gave HKFC a 15-0 lead at halftime.

HKFC resumed service early in the second half with hooker Joel Ackhurst crossing over. Rowark’s conversion pushed Club out to 22-0, before Kowloon got on the board through a try from No.8 Rory Martyn-Smith. Flyhalf Chris McAdam’s conversion was good and he added a penalty shortly thereafter to close the gap to 22-10 inside the last ten minutes but HKFC secured the bonus point win after a try from new signing prop Jacob Rumball to bring the final score to 27-10.