It was literally a game of two halves this afternoon at Hong Kong Football Club as Hong Kong coach Leigh Jones swapped out his probables and possibles at half-time in a warm-up encounter with the University of Waikato Chiefs Development team.

With much at stake in the coming six months, Hong Kong got their campaign off to a promising start today in a hard-fought 49-27 loss against the Super Rugby hopefuls from New Zealand.

Jones’s side are embarking on a monumental campaign that sees them contesting the Asia Rugby Championships at the end of the month against South Korea and Malaysia.  That tournament is a must-win for Hong Kong’s hopes to advance as Asian champions to the first of a two-stage 2019 Rugby World Cup qualification campaign.  

The winners of the Asian championship will advance to a home-and-away series with Oceania qualifiers Cook Islands this summer, with the winner of that series progressing through to a final four-team qualifier in France later in the year.

Also this summer is the Rugby World Cup Sevens in San Francisco, an important build-up for Hong Kong for the Asian Sevens Series and the looming rugby sevens competition at the Asian Games later this summer.

Hong Kong was in the match throughout today’s tie, but were set back by individual errors and some defensive lapses as the the Chiefs pulled away from a 35-15 lead at half-time to run out 49-27 winners.

The seven-try Chiefs Development XV outscored Hong Kong who came up with four tries on the day in one of several positives for coach Leigh Jones.

“I think we played well. There was a lot of good stuff to come out today. A lot of their tries came from us spilling the ball and that’s something we can improve on because we’ll be training at a higher intensity now.

“The test was exactly what we wanted, the score line perhaps wasn’t,” added Jones who rued a few missed opportunities that swung the game in the visitors’ favour this afternoon.

“We were the architects of our own downfall today. If we cough up as much ball as we did against teams like that, then they are going to hurt us like they did today. It was a good lesson. If you’re going to do that with teams of this quality then you have to expect that result, and Korea are very capable of doing what the Chiefs do.

“The disappointing thing was that we slipped off a lot of tackles. Our defence was a bit ordinary today to be kind. That is something we will have to work on in terms of our individual performance in both attack and defence.

“We have got to be able to function at that level of intensity, but I think today puts us in a good place for the Asian championship,” added Jones.

Fly-half Matt Rosslee capped a positive opening foray for Hong Kong with a penalty in the second minute, before Salom Yiu Kam-shing scored the hosts’ first try in the 12th minute as spectators were entertained by a back and forth first half with four lead changes.

Hong Kong slipped in intensity during a crucial period late in the opening half with the Chiefs Development XV running in three tries over the course of 10 minutes. Outside back Isaac Te Temaki, who appeared for New Zealand in the Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens earlier this month, started the try-scoring run after Hong Kong failed to cleanly take a speculative kick upfield.

Jones was impressed that Hong Kong managed to regain their composure after leaking those tries, fighting their way back into the encounter late in the half after No.8 Thomas Lamboley finished a strong period of attacking pressure with a try from in-close to close the gap to 35-15.

In an encouraging sign of Hong Kong’s increasing depth, Jones was able to fully swap out his charges at the 40-minute marker, but the Chiefs managed to catch Hong Kong flat-footed shortly after kick-off to extend their lead to 42-15 before collecting their seventh try in the 57th minute to lead 49-15.

Hong Kong held the Chiefs off the board for the remainder of what was a stop-start second half, adding both of the game’s closing tries after Max Denmark showed good game sense on the wing to cap off a sustained period of pressure for Hong Kong in the 75th minute.

Hong Kong also scored the try of the match in the closing moments when Sam Purvis turned over Chiefs ball deep in Hong Kong territory to start an 80-metre run.

No.8 Phil Whitfield did well with ball in hand, picking up significant metres before standing up in contact to offload to lock Jack Delaforce who scampered over the remaining 20-metres to score.  Ben Rimene’s conversion was successful as Hong Kong closed the gap to 49-27 at full-time.

Jones took away much from today’s opening salvos in the campaign ahead, saying: “There are a lot of positives from today, particularly the fact that we were able to play a bit of rugby today. There was a lot that came out in the game in terms of what we wanted to achieve before the match.

“We just need to look after the ball a bit better. We didn't look after the ball well enough or execute the way we would have liked to today, but I think we are probably in a good position now for a fortnight’s time [the start of the Asian championships]”.