Natixis HKFC battled Herbert Smith Freehills HKCC to the first draw of the season in a thrilling encounter that ended with the scores locked at 23-all in the showcase match of Round 5. Societe Generale Valley outlasted a spirited challenge from Kowloon winning 24-18 and Bloomberg HK Scottish declawed Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers 41-29 in today’s other matches.

HKCC led by as much as 11 points on their home deck at one point, before HKFC came storming back into contention.

“It’s been the story of our season, except for last week,” HKCC coach Kevin West said. “We have started well and have some clarity at the beginning of the game, but then they throw something different at us and that clarity disappears a little bit. Then we take a while to get back into what works for us.”

HKCC hit the scoreboard early from the boot of fullback James Love before HKFC scrum half Max Page followed up with a penalty of his own. Soon after, HKCC were awarded a penalty try when HKFC prop Keelan Chapman was adjudged to have deliberately knocked on to prevent the home side from crossing. Chapman was given a yellow card for his misdemeanour and spent 10 minutes in the bin and when Love converted, HKCC found itself 10-3 in front.

A Liam Slatem try after a gut-busting Rowan Varty chasedown saw the hosts surge to a 17-6 lead before a bullocking effort by Jevon Groves, lining up at No 8 this week, and Page’s conversion dragged HKFC back into the game, 17-13, at the break.

It was all Football Club in the second half, with fly half Tom Isaacs, Groves and Dan Falvey causing headaches for their opposition with their strong running. The effort was unrewarded initially, although a Page penalty after a yellow card to HKCC’s Andrew Krelle got HKFC within a point.

After a substantial stalemate, HKFC’s constant attacking was rewarded, with Ben Axten-Burrett finding the line and Page adding the extras to put the visitors ahead 23-17.

The home side refused to lie down, however, and forced their opponents to make errors, with Love stepping up – as he has all season – and nailing two crucial penalties to tie the scores.

“We started way to slow, to be honest we were pedestrian to start with,” HKFC coach Phil Bailey said. “But credit to the guys in the back end of the first half, we started to play the footy that we want to play and saw the rewards. Second half we started well then we dropped off and fell into the same habits that cost us points and pretty much cost us the game in the first 20 minutes. We went away from how we want to play footy.”

The draw was enough for HKCC to hang on to the Broony Quaich, something West was very pleased about. “Having the Broony Quaich is a very big thing for us,” West said. “There are only three trophies in Hong Kong. We currently have one and to hold it for the rest of the season would be a massive achievement.”

In Happy Valley, cracks started to appear in the home side’s efforts to defend their double championship as the understrength defenders were pushed to the brink at home in a 24-18 victory over Kowloon.

Valley’s efforts to play out wide early on were stymied by some committed and opportunistic Kowloon defence. The visitors recovered from an early Valley penalty, struck by fly half Ben Rimene, to take an 8-3 lead midway through the half after fly half Jack Neville scored an intercept try and later added a penalty.

Valley centre Ally Maclay kept his side in the match with a brace of tries on either side of halftime, the first coming in the 38th minute to level the scores at 8-all before Rimene’s conversion provided a slim 10-8 margin. Kowloon stormed back late in the half with their second try coming off a line-out and driving maul to put the visitors back in the lead, 15-10 at the break.

Maclay’s second try came in the opening stages of the second half with Rimene’s conversion edging Valley ahead 17-15, a lead they were to build on in the 54th minute after a try from No.8 Thomas Lamboley. Rimene’s conversion pushed the margin to 24-15 before Neville narrowed the gap with his second penalty of the match to close out the scoring at 24-18.

A deep bench was an essential attribute in last season’s successful run to the double for Valley but that depth has been tested in the first round of the Premiership. Valley were without key players like Ryan Meacheam, Tiger Bax and Reece Hamon, all injured or unavailable today, and suffered another blow when Max Woodward was forced off the pitch with an elbow injury, forcing coach Andrew Kelly to call upon his brigade of young guns.

Three U20s players figured prominently including 17-year old winger Sam Jupp, who earned the start in Meacheam’s absence, while Paul Altier and William Beattie both came on as reserves. Another recent U20s player JW Markley came on for captain Dayne Jans in the second half. The infusion of fresh legs and a more direct gameplan made the difference in the final forty minutes as Valley scored 14 straight points without reply.

Deano Herewini, Director of Rugby for Valley, chalked up today’s struggles to a tepid start, saying, “We took ages to get into the game. Our game plan was to get the ball wide but full credit to Kowloon their defence put us under a lot of pressure and their line speed was impressive. At times we may have tried to play with a bit too much width and we allowed Kowloon to capitalize on some of our errors.”

Positive halftime adjustments saw Valley adopt a more direct approach with significant success.

“We were frustrated in our attempts to play wide so after halftime we focused on getting more strike plays into the game and playing more direct options. We carried the ball much better and started to build some momentum off those runs,” Herewini added.

Valley will face HKFC next week ahead of the break for the international test window in November and Herewini is hoping his side has one more big performance in it before the much-needed hiatus.

“We’ve done well to manage our numbers and have won some good matches despite the injury toll. I was really pleased with the performance of the young guys, they really stepped up when we needed them. We continue to play good rugby and are managing to hold our own despite the injuries. I’m sure it is a similar situation for most of the clubs in the Premiership at this stage.

“Next week we will have to front up against Football Club on our club day. Hopefully we can reach the test window with another win to set us up for the bye weeks,” Herewini concluded.

Bloomberg Hong Kong Scottish dismantled USRC Borrelli Walsh Tigers this afternoon with a 41-29 win in a high-scoring encounter that saw nine tries scored. Scottish secured their bonus point for scoring over four tries by the 30-minute marker as they opened up a 31-10 lead at halftime.

Mike Moeahu set the pace for Scottish with two tries in the opening half. Alessandro Nardoni added a try as did captain Kane Boucaut who recently returned to Premiership action after an injury lay-off. Centre Lex Kaleca added a fifth try for Scottish in the second half while fly-half Gregor McNeish did his damage with the boot with two penalties and a perfect conversion rate of five-for-five.

Tigers’ halfbacks Cado Lee Ka-to and Sam Ellis combined for Tigers’ first half scoring with Ellis collecting a penalty in the 29th minute and converting Lee’s 39th minute try. Tigers found their attacking mojo late in the match with Calvin Hunter, Yiu Kam-shing and John Hrstich scoring tries in the last 10 minutes to collect a bonus point while Ellis added two conversions.

Today’s draw at Aberdeen allowed HK Scottish to sneak ahead of the Cricketers into second place in the standings with 15 points, trailing league leaders Valley (18) and two points ahead of HKCC (13). Football Club’s battling effort sees the Sports Road outfit alone in fourth place on the table (11) ahead of fifth-ranked Tigers (9) and sixth-placed Kowloon (5).