Natixis Hong Kong Football Club hosts SCAA First Pacific Causeway Bay Phoenix tomorrow night at So Kon Po at 18.00 in the KPMG Premiership Game of the Week.  In other women’s premiership action, Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers play Plastic Free Seas City Sparkle at 18.00 at King George V, while Gai Wu Falcons play Kerry Hotel Kowloon at 16.30 and Societe Generale alley play TransAct 24 Taipo Dragons at 16.30 at Happy Valley (pitch 6).

Gai Wu, Valley, Kowloon and Causeway Bay all emerged from last weekend’s season openers with bonus point wins, creating a four-way logjam at the top of the table, while Football Club joined Dragons, Tigers and City on the losing side of the ledger.

Handed a tough draw to open their campaign against last year’s double champions Gai Wu, Football Club lost 37-20 but there were some strong positives for first year coach Wesley Feausi.

“Our assistant coach Pete Ayers has been involved with the squad for the past three years and he told me it was some of the best rugby that Football Club have played in that time. We were close to them at many points and there was a lot of celebrating when we tied the score in the first half.

“But it is a long season and not just one match, we can’t be satisfied until we win those type of games, especially when we know we can compete at that level.”

Football Club fought gamely, drawing level with Falcons in the 20^th minute, 5-all, after a try from captain Rachel Fong but allowed Falcons to swoop in for 12 more points before halftime.

Club kept things tight in the second stanza, with new arrival Elisabeth Musgrove, (who made the Scotland Sevens side in 2017 after only one year playing rugby), impressing on her debut with two tries, including one in the 80^th minute to narrow the final score to 17 points.

The Falcons wore down Club’s defence down the stretch, scoring twice within ten minutes, to push the lead to 37-12 before Musgrove’s late strike made things marginally more respectable.

Feausi was impressed by Musgrove’s debut, saying, “Great debut. She was really throwing her body on the line in the tackle and she is very vocal. She scored two really good tries for us,” Feausi said.

Unfortunately, one of Club’s other new arrivals didn’t fare as well, with centre Biddy Sefton suffering a shoulder injury that will likely keep her sidelined until after Christmas. That injury adds to a raft of player availability issues for Feausi ahead of Saturday’s match.

“Biddy is injured, as are a few other girls; we have a Football Club IRANZ tour this weekend and Royce Chan is in Kuala Lumpur finishing up her level three coaching course. All in, we are going to be without eight of the side that played Gai Wu,” he said. 

That is a slippery situation for Ice and Feausi is having to call on all levels of the club to support.

“Fire, our seconds, are playing in their first year of National League 1 this season. We thought it was time to get them some more competitive rugby, but now we are going to need a few girls to take another step up.

“Fortunately, Fire are playing Tai Po at 4.30 so they can be available to support the firsts and there are definitely some girls in the second with real potential to break through into the Premiership this season.”

Feausi will need them to take that step earlier than planned.

“I saw a bit of the Causeway Bay game on the weekend. They are well drilled and have that typical Chinese club ‘never-say-die’ attitude. We are going to have to be firing to beat them.”

One of Feausi’s longer-term focuses for Football Club is changing the mindset at Sports Road.

“If the girls could only play the way they train they would be unstoppable. We were fired up before the season start and when the draw came out and we had Gai Wu first up, some heads dropped a bit.

“We know who Gai Wu are and I was glad to have them first up. We need to test ourselves and have that self-belief, no matter who we face,” he added.

The next test in building that belief will come Saturday night at Sports Road when the high-flying Phoenix come to HKFC after posting the league’s biggest week one win with a 55-7 victory over City.